You're invited
Athens will host more than the Summer Olympics. Abeer Anwar sees
what else is in store
Special Olympics Athens has decided to make room for mentally disabled athletes when inviting the world's seven regions of Special Olympics to the SO World Festival. The event will be held in tandem with the European Year of Education through Sports which takes place from 14 to 21 May 2004.
SO Athens, which will host all the delegations in Rhodes, specified the number of participants from each region: 200 athletes from Special Olympics Europe-Eurasia; 100 from North and Latin America; 100 from the Middle East and North Africa; 50 from Africa; 50 from Asia Pacific; and 60 from China.
SO athletes will compete in aquatics, cycling, basketball and unified basketball (where three able-bodied players, together with three mentally disabled, form one team). There will also be events for severe handicaps such as 10m swimming with help, 25m freestyle, butterfly, backstroke and breast. Swimming will include 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and 4X50m relay events in freestyle, backstroke, breast and butterfly.
MENA countries will also compete in a new sport, cycling, which includes 500m, 1,000m, 5,000m, 10,000m and 15,000m races.
"It is an honour for our region to be invited to such a huge event and with such a large number of athletes in comparison to other regions," Ayman Abdel-Wahab, SO MENA region managing director, said. "It will be a good opportunity for people from all over the world to meet. I thank Special Olympics Athens for opening the doors to all SO athletes to visit such a country with a long history and to compete where the 2004 World Olympics will be held."
Ten MENA countries will enter the SO World Festival -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Mauritania, Lebanon and Syria. "It is an enormous achievement that Iraq and Mauritania will participate despite the current conditions in the two countries," Mohamed El-Shafei, MENA sports advisor, said. "It will help in their growth and in achieving our goal of reaching out to 110,000 athletes by the end of 2005.
"The festival will also be a good opportunity to prepare our athletes for the 2004 MENA Games in Tunisia in September," El-Shafei added.
"It will also be an opportunity not to be missed for the severely handicapped to take part in events like swimming and to feel they are part of a world event. It helps in their inclusion."
