Law Enforcement Torch Run
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Special Olympics El Salvador athlete Manolo Cornejo, center, carries the miner's lamp that transported the Flame of Hope to Latin America. [Image courtesy of the official Games Web site] |
On 24 March, First Lady of El Salvador Mrs. Ana Ligia Mixco Sol de Saca, Special Olympics athletes, members of Salvadoran law enforcement agencies and an expectant crowd of well-wishers cheered as Special Olympics El Salvador athlete Manolo Cornejo arrived by helicopter to deliver the "Flame of Hope" to the Gran Vía Esplanade in the center of San Salvador.
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Throughout the country, schoolchildren lined the routes to greet the torch runners. Here, children from the Centro Escolar Milingo awaited the torch on the road into the town of Suchitoto, after the Ministry of Education spread the word about the Torch Run to all schools along the route. [Photo by Ann L. Brueggemann] |
The First Lady received the flame and, as she lit five torches, charged runners to "carry this flame throughout our country as a symbol of the First Latin America Special Olympics Games 2006."
Over the next three days, more than 300 students from the National Academy of Public Safety would run the Flame along five routes stretching the length and breadth of the country of El Salvador, covering every department, and totaling 1,740 kilometers, before arriving at Jorge Mágico González Stadium for Opening Ceremonies on Monday, 27 March.
Along the five routes, groups of schoolchildren greeted the torch runners, local authorities conducted celebrations in town squares, and Special Olympics athletes joined law enforcement officers to escort the "Flame of Hope" through their communities. Vladimir Cáceres, Director of the Law Enforcement Torch Run for the First Special Olympics Latin America Games, estimates that 30,000 people around El Salvador watched as the flame was carried through their communities.
Witnesses to this Torch Run might not have realized the significance of the event for Special Olympics Latin America. While their Salvadoran counterparts ran with the Flame, law enforcement officials from Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Venezuela received two days of training in order to initiate Torch Run programs in their own countries, and had the privilege of running the torch into the Host Town of La Palma to celebrate the arrival of the delegations.
The legacy of this first official Law Enforcement Torch Run in Latin America will be evident at subsequent National Special Olympics Games around the region, when the Flame of Hope will be rekindled again and again to help change attitudes and promote opportunities for Special Olympics athletes.
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