Decades before the Paralympic Games were born, the world’s first multi-discipline competition for athletes with a disability took place in Paris in the summer of 1924. Reserved for deaf competitors, the International Silent Games were a landmark in sports history and laid the foundations for today’s contests.
Among the many firsts for which the 1924 Paris Olympics are remembered, one is often overlooked.
Two weeks after the Summer Games ended, they were followed by another competition. Like the Olympics, it featured disciplines from athletics to swimming to shooting, and multiple countries took part.
But it wasn’t the Paralympics. It was the International Silent Games, the first event of its kind and a defining moment for deaf sport.
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Founding father
Like the modern Olympics, reinvented by a Parisian aristocrat, the Silent Games were largely the brainchild of a Frenchman: Eugène Rubens Alcais.
Born the son of a postman in the south of France in 1884, Rubens Alcais began life with his hearing but lost it around the age of nine due to ear infections. After attending a school for deaf-mute children, he moved to Paris and worked as a mechanic.
“He was a very good cyclist. He actually started out as a footballer for Nîmes, then he came to Paris and took up cycling and middle-distance running,” Séguillon says. “So he was a dedicated sportsman.”
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