The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

SPECIAL Olympics Bahamas will be well represented at the Special Olympics World Games - the largest sports and humanitarian event held anywhere in the world in 2015 - scheduled for July 25 to August 2.

Special Olympics Bahamas will be sending a 35 member delegation of athletes and coaches to Los Angeles, California, and they will be competing in aquatics, athletics, bocce, bowling, open water swimming and tennis.

Gilbert Williams, head of the delegation, said the group is quite excited about participating this year. “My expectation is that the athletes will perform at their best and that is what we are looking for,” said Williams, who will be assisted by Johnneice Blyden-Williams. “We only want the best for them and I think they will do that.”

Williams said once they do their personal best, they will do extremely well and have fun in the process as they experience a higher level of competition.

The Bahamas will be among the 7,000 athletes and 3,000 coaches representing 177 countries, along with 30,000 volunteers and an anticipated 500,000 spectators as they participate in the single biggest event in Los Angeles since the 1984 Olympic Games.

The opening ceremony will be held July 25 in the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, site of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games.

Williams said the coaching staff has been busy getting the athletes ready in all of the disciplines for the trip. “This is our regular swim training, so swimming is ongoing,” he said. “Our track season would have typically ended a couple weeks ago when we had our track nationals. What we did was we actually took two weeks off and the track team out of New Providence will resume their training. We have an athlete from Grand Bahama and we know he’s been doing his continuous training.

“The bowling is going very well. We have finished our regular season, but the games team is still practicing. We are trying to arrange games between various teams from the banks and business houses to help keep our athletes sharp. So I’m really looking for some big things from the bowling team in particular. Tennis is going very well. They train every Saturday and we have two athletes coming out of Grand Bahama.”

Unlike the other international competitions around the world, Williams said there is no overall champion crowned, but instead the emphasis is placed on the individual athletes as they compete for gold, silver and bronze medals as well as ribbons from fourth place down.

“While we have been successful in our athletes coming back with medals, we have been focusing on our athletes turning in their personal best performances,” Williams said. “If you perform your best or even better than your best, ain’t nobody can ask for anything more from our athletes.”

The Special Olympics Bahamas team, which has received some funding from Bahamas Waste Management for the trip, will leave on July 21, but Williams said they are still encouraging the public to make a financial donation, whether it’s one dollar to a million dollars because their athletes perform just as the elite athletes who represent the country.

“It’s a little sad, but hopefully we can show better support for our Special Olympic athletes,” he said.

Founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Special Olympics’ mission is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.