Sport is all about mind, body and spirit. As demonstrated by the 242 special athletes who represented India in the Special Olympics World Summer games held at Los Angeles. U.S. from July 25 to August 2. They collected 173 medals in all, across 14 disciplines! And, India finished a proud third. The U.S. and China being first and second respectively.
What is more remarkable is that this medals tally is India’s highest ever in the history of Special Olympics. And as the news broke, most people mistook the event for Paralympics which is a different competition altogether. Alternation between their two variants, the summer and winter games, every two years, is the only similarity between the two sporting events. While Paralympics is pre-dominantly for sportspersons with physical disabilities, Special Olympics is exclusively for those with intellectual disabilities.
The latest edition of the Special Olympics featured approximately 6,500 athletes from 165 countries with an overall 25 sports disciplines on offer.
Sporting carnival
“My husband and I, we are so proud of you, so incredibly proud of you, and we love you all from the bottom of our hearts,” said US first lady Michelle Obama, officially declaring the games open. It was this love that prompted Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who fought for the acceptance and rights of the intellectually disabled, to envision and conceptualise the Special Olympics. What started as a camp in her backyard in 1962, grew into a global sporting carnival in 1968 and earned the International Olympic Committee recognition in 1988.
A major chunk of India’s medals this year, 86 to be precise, came from roller skating and athletics. Fourteen-year-old Ranveer Singh Saini, who was diagnosed with autism when he was two, created history when he struck India’s first ever gold in the history of the games, in golf, this year. Basking in his ward’s achievement, coach Chand is reported to have said that communicating with Saini was the biggest challenge he had to overcome.
Equally heart warming is the tale of 15-year-old Rajvir Singh, son of a labourer from Punjab, who bagged two gold medals in two different categories for cycling. The story goes that he had to make do with a rusty old bicycle while he was practising for the Olympics. Then with just a month to go, a businessman gifted him a new one. His father, Balbir Singh said, “I would force him to practise and he would cry. I knew that his mental health was not good but something had to be done to make him strong and confident. In the beginning, his legs gave up after cycling a short distance. But I did not give up. Gradually, he started enjoying cycling and my hope grew that he could do something in life.”
The stories of these achievers is nothing short of overwhelming.
