Kazan hosts the All-Russian Special Olympics in winter sports
The competitions, which take place in the capital of Tatarstan from February 3 to 8, will show whether the city is ready for the upcoming international event – the Special Olympics World Winter Games 2022.
600 athletes with intellectual disabilities from 36 regions of Russia take part in the Games. These competitions will become a platform for selecting athletes for the national team that will represent the country in a year.
The main task of the organizers is to promote the idea of an inclusive society and unite people with intellectual disabilities through sports.
“I see how inclusion changes the worldview, has a two-way impact: on people with and without disabilities, makes us all equal. Yesterday, on the first day of the competition, I noticed how satisfied and happy the athletes who came to us are: they like sports facilities, like the competitions themselves, like to communicate. And the people who interact with them, it seems to me, are also learning a lot, expanding their boundaries, becoming freer,” ASI said. Larisa Parfenova, Chairman of the Tatarstan Republican branch Special Olympiad of Russia.
The Tatarstan team is represented in five sports. There are six of them: snowshoeing, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, figure skating and short track. Competitions are hosted by four sports facilities: Burevestnik, Lokomotiv, Sviyazhsky Hills and the Sports Palace.
“It is important to say about the volunteers who work at the competitions. There are 490 of them in total. About a hundred are students of the Volga Academy of Sports and Tourism, the rest are representatives of other universities. Among the volunteers there are also adults, accomplished people. We are closely cooperating with the ANO Directorate of Sports and Social Projects, this time we trained volunteers online, and I saw the genuine interest of the participants. All of them were looking forward to this event,” added Parfenova.
The international movement aimed at ending discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities Special Olympics was founded in 1968. Every year it organizes about 100,000 games and competitions in more than 30 Olympic sports, and brings together 6 million athletes and unified partners, more than a million coaches and volunteers in 190 countries.
The Russian Special Olympics was founded in 1999. Every year it holds about 5,000 sports events at the municipal, regional and all-Russian levels. Regional branches operate in 62 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.