Paralympic Heritage Flame lit in Stoke Mandeville

STOKE MANDEVILLE, England (AP) — The Paralympic Heritage Flame has been lit in Stoke Mandeville, the village northwest of London that is widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games. The cauldron was lit during a ceremony in the small village in Buckinghamshire, where the Stoke Mandeville Games were first held in 1948 for wheelchair athletes. Those later grew into the first Paralympic Games, which took place in Rome in 1960. The ceremony was the international leg of the Paralympic torch relay taking place in Japan. The Tokyo Paralympics open on Aug. 24 in a ceremony at Tokyo’s National Stadium. They will feature about 4,400 athletes.