''Leipzig sportlich'': athletes with disabilities – a common presence in the city of sports

	Wheelchair athlete during the 22nd Leipzig Marathon on 13th June 1998

One association provides an example for 15

Leipzig's sports association for the disabled "Behindertensportverein Leipzig" was founded on 9th October 1990. But it was not that the association had 'invented' sports for people with disabilities – rather, most of Leipzig's disabled, including many veterans, had done sports for many years, some of them even for many decades. Yet, the association provided a necessary new organisational foundation for their sports after the German reunification. Above all, many of the people with disabilities made use of the new democratic atmosphere by frankly voicing their concerns, requirements and interests. As a consequence, many new sports opportunities were created and the number of groups offering such opportunities grew. Today, the city has 15 sports associations and departments in larger sports federations with a total of more than 2,300 members. The "Behindertensportverein" is one of the largest with 414 physically, visually or mentally challenged members.

	Disabled volleyball players of Behindertensportverein Leipzig during the Sachsenpokal 1999

A fresh start right after the war

Only a few months after World War II Leipzig's people with physical disabilities began partaking in sports again. On 1st November 1945 a group of about 30 swimming enthusiasts began regular training in the Leipzig Baths, thereby founding the first organised sports group for people with disabilities in the city. The two trainers of the group did a particularly great service to the development of sports for the disabled: Martin Stein, a well-known former German swimmer and diver, and Alfred Backofen, who later headed the group for people with disabilities at BSG Chemie. Other notables in the group included Josef Schopp, responsible for aquatic sports at the Office for Sports of the city council, and Karl Hinze, sports warden of Leipzig-Nord.
Several member of this "group of the 30" were veterans of the First World War.
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Wolfram Sperling