Switzerland was one of the seventeen nations that competed at the inaugural Summer Paralympic Games in 1960 held in Rome, Italy, from September 19 to 24, 1960.^[1][2] Preparations for the Games began two years prior in 1958 to stage what was at the time called the 9th Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games.^[3] The team finished thirteenth in the medal table with a total of four medals, one gold and three silver.^[4] The Swiss team consisted of two athletes: Denis Favre, a man who competed in athletics and swimming events, and Simone Knusli, a woman who competed in swimming.^[1]

Athletes at the first Paralympics in 1960 were all afflicted by spinal cord injuries and required the use of a wheelchair.^[3] This is in contrast to later Paralympics that include events for participants that fit into any of five different disability categories; amputation, either congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy; wheelchair athletes; visual impairment, including blindness; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism or multiple sclerosis.^[5][6] Each Paralympic sport then has its own classifications, dependent upon the specific physical demands of competition. Events are given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing.^[7]

Denis Favre took part in two field events; the men's javelin C and the men's shot put C.^[8] In the javelin Favre threw 21.71 metres to win the silver medal; gold was won by Enzo Santini of host nation Italy, who threw 22.90 metres, and the bronze medal went to Hepple of Great Britain.^[9] Favre also won the silver medal in the shot put; his distance of 8.05 metres split the American pair of Ron Stein and Welger who took gold and bronze medals with distances of 10.13 metres and 7.77 metres respectively.^[10]

Both of the Swiss athletes took part in a swimming event at the Games. Each won a medal as their events contained only three competitors.^[8] Denis Favre won the gold medal in the men's 50 metres crawl complete class 5, beating his nearest rival Sznitowski of Argentina by 0.2 seconds.^[11] In the women's 25 metres breaststroke complete class 2 Simone Knusli won the silver medal after finishing 2.1 seconds behind the winner of the event, Great Britain's Susan Masham.^[12]

• Switzerland at the 1960 Summer Olympics