The World Wheelchair Games formally known as Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Games or Stoke Mandeville Games, which gave birth to the Paralympics is an annual event held in Stoke Mandeville (except in the year when the Summer Paralympics are held and in 1999 when held in New Zealand). The Games started in 1948 by Sir Ludwig Guttmann who organized a sporting competition involving World War II veterans with spinal cord injury in 1952 the Netherlands joined in the games creating the first international games for the disabled.