1960 Summer Paralympics in the context of "1960 Summer Olympics"

The Paralympic Games or Paralympics is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of disabilities. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, have been held shortly after the corresponding Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

The Paralympics began as a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948. The 1960 Games in Rome drew 400 athletes with disabilities from 23 countries, as proposed by doctor Antonio Maglio. Currently it is one of the largest international sporting events: the 2020 Summer Paralympics featuring 4,520 athletes from 163 National Paralympic Committees.

The World Abilitysport Games (known as the IWAS World Games before 2023) are a parasports multi-sport event for athletes who use wheelchairs or are amputees. Organized by World Abilitysport (formerly IWAS), the Games are a successor to the original Stoke Mandeville Games founded in 1948 by Ludwig Guttmann, and specifically the International Stoke Mandeville Games—the first international sporting competition for athletes with disabilities which was held in 1952, itself an Olympic year, between British and Dutch athletes and which ultimately was the forerunner to the modern Paralympic Games.

The 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972 editions of the International Stoke Mandeville Games were held in the same host country as the Summer Olympics; they were retroactively recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the first four Summer Paralympic Games. The event continued to be held annually, as simply the International Stoke Mandeville Games, in between Paralympic years.