Four Sabahans to compete at Special Olympics World Games

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KOTA KINABALU: Four Sabahans with intellectual disabilities will be competing in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles, California, United States of America (USA) this July.

Set to take place from July 25 to August 2, the Special Olympics World Games will see 7,000 athletes representing 177 countries taking part in 25 sporting events.

The athletes from Sabah are Ong Chee Gian, 19, competing in the half marathon and 1,500-metre run; Chia Yuan Sheng, 27, for the 100-metre run and shotput men’s four kilogrammes; Aini Shafiqah binti Madlan, 15, for the 200-metre run and long jump, as well as Faridah binti Isa, 24, going for the 100-metre run and shot-put women’s three kilogrammes.

Special Olympics Sabah board chairman Datuk Hj Mohd Safari bin Manan said Special Olympics was essentially an organization that organized sports for the intellectually disabled all year round.

Without the event, Safari said people with intellectual disability, say a person with Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and epilepsy would have no chance of participating in any sports or game events in a number of situations.

“Normally, they will be the sideliners, the bystanders, just watching and wishing they could play.”

In worse cases, he said these people would get mocked at.

Hence, he said the Special Olympics provided opportunity, involvement and participation in sporting events not only for people with intellectual disability, but also the parents, the public, coaches and volunteers.

“We realize that by involving them in sports and games (intellectually disabled people), they are quite normal. They have abilities that can equate them with other people.

“We need to look at their ability instead of disability,” he stressed.

Safari said that at the press conference for Sutera Harbour 7K Run here yesterday.

The run will be held on August 29 at Sutera Harbour Resort.

Safari said the Special Olympics athletes go for training and competition at the local and state levels all year round.

He said the local Special Olympics athletes had been participating in the sporting event for the past 15 years.

“They are bringing back gold medals. They really did us proud, did Malaysia proud.”

To provide year-round training programmes and athletic competition, Safari said funds were needed to sustain the programmes.

“Because of that, we are very grateful to Sutera Harbour for initiating the 7K Run, which has not only become very popular, but has become institutionalized. Everybody talks about it, everybody knows about it.”