Legacy of Paralympics founder

CGTN Europe

Antonio Maglio, the visionary behind the first Paralympic Games, used sport in the 1950s to empower paraplegic patients. His widow spoke to   CGTN about his legacy living on through athletes today.   #Paralympics #Paris2024

Transcript

00:0036 years after he died, Antonio Maglio's study remains exactly as it was, but his widow Maria

00:09Stella says it's not just in this room where his legacy lives on.

00:15I am very, very emotional because when I see the athletes take to the field, I see the

00:20figure of Antonio Maglio that watches and flies over them.

00:26Maglio is known as the father of the Paralympics and dedicated his life to disabled people.

00:32After losing his own son, Maglio saw his patients as his children.

00:40He was a visionary who saw beyond because at the time people were doomed to die because

00:45they were in a cast.

00:47Instead, he managed to find the right cure through his mind and his love for these young

00:52people.

00:54In particular, he focused on sport for physical and psychological rehabilitation and reintegration.

01:00In 1959, he announced alongside his friend, neurologist Sir Ludwig Goodman, that he would

01:06bring Bruton's Stoke Mandeville Games for disabled people to Italy.

01:10I want to thank in a special way Dr. Goodman, who has agreed that the Stoke Mandeville Games

01:16next year shall be held in Rome after the Olympic Games on the same sports grounds of

01:23the 17th Olympiad.

01:27It wasn't until 1984 that the event was retrospectively named as the inaugural Paralympic Games, four

01:34years before Maglio died.

01:36Maria Stella says his highest honor was recognition by the Italian president.

01:45Sergio Mattarella, the Rome Olympics of 1960 left an important mark on the international

01:51community, the first Paralympics.

01:58Here in 1960, 400 disabled athletes gathered from 23 countries to compete across eight

02:04sports, while this year in Paris, four and a half thousand Paralympians will participate

02:09from 150 countries, while the number of sporting events has almost tripled.

02:16This year, Italy has sent its biggest ever contingent of Paralympic athletes.

02:21Maria Stella says whatever the results, the team is already victorious.

02:31Maglio's mission was always normality, the possibility to live with the same rights and

02:37duties as everyone else.

02:39The Paralympics, for him, was a victory.

02:42Hermione Dickinson, CGTN, Rome.

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