World Abilitysport Games

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 event continued to be held annually, as simply the International Stoke Mandeville Games, in between Paralympic years.

The event was first established in 1948 as the Stoke Mandeville Games by neurologist Ludwig Guttmann, who organized a sporting competition involving World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital rehabilitation facility in Aylesbury, England, taking place concurrently with the first post-war Olympic Games in London.

Games were held annually in Aylesbury under the direction of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF), which later became the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation (ISMWSF).

In 2004, ISMWSF and ISOD merged to create the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS).

In 2024, IWAS merged with the Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CPISRA) to form World Abilitysport.