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To be honest, I profess to know very little about the Special Olympics, and the types of events competed in, but hopefully this post will bring me (and perhaps some of you!) up to speed with how our team has performed at the recent summer games in Shanghai.
Firstly, huge congratulations are in order, after the team brought home 23 gold medals, 18 silver, and 18 bronze! This is a fantastic achievement, and from what I saw on the news tonight, the welcoming ceremony reflected this remarkable success. Great stuff guys 
For those of you who are interested, a bit of research reveals the following about the Special Olympics:
- Held once every four years, and the athletes competing all have some form of intellectual disability
- It is the largest sporting event of 2007, with over 7000 athletes from 169 countries competing
- Over $500,000 needed to be raised to transport the 49-strong squad, plus support staff, to Shanghai for the event - and most of this was achieved through community support
- New Zealand’s best events were swimming and ten-pin bowling, earning 5 gold medals in each of those sections, a great result. We also won the division 6 men’s basketball title
Once again congratulations to our Special Olympics team, you guys did your country proud! To read more on the team, and to get a breakdown of results, check out the Special Olympics official site
5 responses so far ↓
1 Miss Anna N // Oct 18, 2007 at 8:39 am
It is these kind of events, and the power of the media, that will bring forth the awareness!
Like I’ve said in previous posts, we don’t need cheesy ad campaigns, we just need real life stories.
And not on the violin strings of “Oh how courageous they are!” But damn it, they did it, and they kicked butt doing it! For get courage, they had the ability and they showed the world they could do it!
Well done to the team. (They did better than the All Blacks!)
2 Rodger Ashton-Smith // Oct 18, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I saw their return on the news last night and I am pleased they covered it for a change. There have been scattered reports from the games and it’s good to see.
3 cerebralcougar // Oct 19, 2007 at 9:38 am
What’s the difference between the allblacks and the kiwi para Olympians ?
4 cerebralcougar // Oct 19, 2007 at 10:00 am
Resilience!
5 Red // Oct 19, 2007 at 10:01 am
Competition, maybe? I’d warrant there’s a damn sight more people playing Rugby than para sports, therefore they’re more celebrated? I also imagine the *perceived* lack of intensity in para sports doesn’t make for quite as interesting Television…
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