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Israel Will Play Host to Wheelchair Olympics

October 15, 1968
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Israel will play host for the first time to the "Olympics-on-Wheels," a series of sporting events in which the participants are paralytics confined to wheelchairs. The games were established in 1948 at a hospital for paralytics at Stoke-Mandeville in Britain and since 1960 have always been held coincidental with the international Olympic games. When the Mexican Government announced this year that it could not host the "wheelchair Olympics." Israel offered its facilities.

The games will be held from Nov. 6-13, mainly at Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv. Events will include basketball, swimming, fencing, weight-lifting, table-tennis, bowling, archery and other sports. Some 1,200 participants are expected, including 73 from England, 63 from the United States, 60 Israelis and 40 each from Germany and Japan, Czechoslovakia was one of the first countries to announce that it would send a team. But contact with the Czechs was interrupted following the Soviet occupation of that country and they never officially registered. The organizing committee said that if a Czech team does show up it will be admitted to the games even though not registered. The event will be held under the patronage of President Zalman Shazar of Israel. It will end with ceremonies in Tel Aviv attended by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol.

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