The Special Olympians of St.Kitts and Nevis, engaged in their first official practice session, in terms of a triathlon, on Sunday 28th January.
Veteran triathlete, Winston Crooke, led out in coordinating the event and guiding the potential athletes, into the new sporting area for them.
He was ably assisted by Ms. Terri Andrews and a host of volunteers.
A source from within the special Olympics organizing committee, informed that for the upcoming world summer games, slated for Abu Dhabi, from March 14th to 19th 2019, the sport of Triathlon, has been added to the list of activities.
In this regard, St.Kitts-Nevis intends to compete in this event and so the athletes are being trained to master the sport, which involves swimming; cycling and running.
Sunday’s exercise attracted a fair number of spectators and saw the athletes swim a specified course; cycle from Oualie to Camps and back and finally run from Oualie to a section of Cottle’s long path and return to Oualie.
It is understood that the sessions will become more competitive as the athletes become more adept at the sport.
An international Special Olympics committee release indicates that: ‘The summer games in 2019 will feature seven days of competition in 24 sports. There will be court sports: badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, bocce, handball, table tennis, tennis and volleyball. There will be races in athletics, cycling, kayaking, open water swimming, roller skating, sailing, swimming and triathlon. Judged competitions will be equestrian, judo, artistic gymnasts and rhythmic gymnastics. Rounding out the list of sports are bowling, football, golf and powerlifting.
Many thousands of people will take part or watch the Games. An estimated 7,000 Special Olympics athletes and their 2,600 coaches will arrive early to get used to the time zone and temperature. Abu Dhabi itself will provide 20,000 volunteers and up to 500,000 spectators. The families of the athletes will number 6,000. And there’s an expectation that 2,000 reporters, photographers, videographers and bloggers will capture the games for international media. Honored guests of Special Olympics could number 4,000, too.’