Last modified: 2013-08-08 by zoltán horváth
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![[Stoke Mandeville Games flag]](../images/i/int@smg.gif)
image by Miles Li, 31 August 2012
See also:
The Stoke Mandeville Games, first held in 1948 and continues today as
the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports World Games, were the
forerunner of the Paralympic Games.
The flag of the Stoke Mandeville Games was in the form of
green-red-green horizontal stripes, with stylized white initials 'SMG'
at the centre, surrounded by five-pointed white stars, the number of
which varied over time, presumably to reflect the number of
participating nations.
Miles Li, 31 August 2012
Do we have a source for the colour of the stars? At
http://thepeacemuseumuk.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/9-paralympic-games/ is a
photograph of an SMG cloth that may or may not be a flag, but which has the
stars in a colour different from that of the letters. Click for a large image.
And I do mean large! I enclose a cropped and scaled version of the
design.
How great was the variation in stars, BTW; so far I've only seen six stars. SMG cloth, hoisted along its top edge.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 08 January 2013
A
colour photo from 1953 showed the stars were indeed white. As seen on
the abovementioned photo, the 1953 games flag had six stars. The 1954 games had
14
participating nations, and accordingly the flag had 14 stars:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheelappeal/6985510929/in/photostream/
But there's more. The version used in the 1963 games had no star; instead a
globe was placed at the centre, and the letters 'SMG' at its sides and bottom:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheelappeal/6985497243/in/photostream/
All the previous versions were shown held up as banners, thus arguably not
'real' flags, but an undated photo here showed yet another version flown on a
proper flagpole. It was the same as the version used in 1963, but with three
interlocking wheelchair wheels (one above two) inthe canton:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheelappeal/6839393210/in/photostream/
Note that the globe was probably in full colours, and the wheels were in white,
as per the 1964 games brochure:
http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/japanese/resource/handicap/bok001/bok001g/i001g00.jpg
Miles Li, 08 January 2013
