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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