KARACHI: Fifty-five athletes, 21 coaches and two officials along with one doctor, making a 77-member contingent, are all set to leave for Los Angeles (LA), California, in the United States of America to feature in the Special Olympics World Games-2015 commencing from July 25.

The Pakistan contingent will leave on July 21. The special games conclude on Aug 2.

The athletes comprising 43 men and 12 women will take part in nine sports, namely, aquatics, athletics, badminton, basketball, cycling, football, power lifting, table tennis and tennis. With unparalleled spirit, enthusiasm, teamwork, joy and displays of courage and skill the Special Olympics this time will feature in 25 sports held in venues throughout LA.

At the send-off reception for team Pakistan here on Saturday evening, Ronak Iqbal Lakhani, who has recently taken over as chairperson of Special Olympics Pakistan and has been working with special athletes for years now, said: “The experience is both exciting and nerve-wrecking for me as we prepare to leave for LA. The Special Olympics World Games is one of the biggest global events that takes place every four years and plays host to athletes from all around the world. Team Pakistan’s special athletes have literally trained religiously in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, having gone through five rigorous training camps in an effort to improve and perfect their game.

“For some of our athletes this will be the first time that they will be traveling outside of Pakistan. To make this overwhelming experience easier for our athletes, our team of enthusiastic interns has been conducting grooming sessions for them, teaching them how to be confident in front of the camera and how to deal with the pressure of competition.”

This year’s edition of Special Olympics, said to be the largest sports and humanitarian event anywhere in the world, will feature 7,000 athletes from 177 counties. In addition there will be 30,000 volunteers to handle the anticipated crowd of 500,000 spectators.

The opening ceremony of the special games will be held on July 25 in the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the opening ceremonies of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games were also held. US first lady Michelle Obama will be among the expected 80,000 spectators along with so many other celebrities.

Published in Dawn ,July 13th, 2015

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