Special Olympics Chairman and CEO Timothy Shriver flanked by Special Olympics Ireland volunteer twins Jenny (left) and Amy Keene with 11-year-old Special Olympics Hungary twins Rita Hingyi (speed skating) and Agnes Hingyi (figure skating) at the Healthy Athletes venue.
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When Special Olympics World Games comes to a host country, something extraordinary happens. It awakens, unites and empowers an entire nation. And it leaves in its wake a legacy, a legacy that will improve the lives of countless people with intellectual disabilities.
Ireland – site of the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games – is proof of that. Special Olympics is still in their blood. Thirty-thousand volunteers, together with Host Towns from every corner of the country, were not only swept up in the excitement of the weeklong World Games experience, but also took the Special Olympics message of inclusion to heart and put it to work.
Veteran Games volunteers, from Dublin to Galway to Wexford, banded together to raise funds and awareness for Special Olympics Ireland by electing to send a self-funded volunteer contingent to every future World Games anywhere in the world to support Team Ireland and work at the Games. Twenty-six came to Japan.
Their presence isn’t going unnoticed in Ireland. They invited celebrity radio host Ian Demspey of Today FM, presenter of the number-one-rated Breakfast Show in Ireland, to broadcast live from Nagano. Millions of Irish citizens eagerly tune in each day for news of the Games, Team Ireland’s successes and interviews, including Special Olympics Chairman and CEO Timothy Shriver, Ireland’s Host Town families and also the volunteers themselves. Ireland’s President Mary McAleese even sent a letter of encouragement and congratulations to be read over the air.
Just what do these volunteers do at the Games? They take turns working at the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes® venue and cheering for the eight Special Olympics Ireland athletes, all of whom compete in Alpine skiing.
Not only has Ireland been bombarded with news from the air waves, they’ve gotten an eyeful from photographer Ray McManus, owner of Sportsfile. Daily Games photographs are sent back to Ireland and printed in newspapers throughout the country, from the smallest weeklies to the largest dailies. Gold-medal winning athlete Lorraine Whelan took center stage on the front page of The Irish Times this week.
Thanks to the eight athletes, five coaches, 26 volunteers, the Today FM crew and Ray McManus, the 2005 World Winter Games have taken Ireland by storm, or maybe it’s the other way around! This only reinforces the Special Olympics grass-roots movement that, by the way, includes former Irish Host Towns which have organized new local Special Olympics Networks which are fueling the infrastructure to increase the number of Special Olympics athletes in Ireland by 100 percent by 2007. The grass really is greener in Ireland.
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