Nearly 2,500 athletes from all across Texas are in Austin over the weekend – competing in this year’s Special Olympics Winter Games. The three-day competition kicked off Thursday night with the traditional lighting of the Special Olympics torch.
“I think the enthusiasm that these athletes bring, I mean the love, the strength, the agility, and the drive, it just makes you humble,” Hector Amaya, Chairman of the Texas Special Olympics said. “It speaks volumes to their own communities back home and to their schools. All the work that their teachers, their coaches and their families did to get them to this point.”
In order to qualify for the games, the athletes are required to train for at least 8 weeks and have an understanding of the sport they are participating in. This year the athletes from 140 teams will compete in Bowling, Powerlifting and Volleyball.
“They’ve spent a lot of time all year long preparing for this,” Amaya said. “So, this is a culmination of all that hard work.”
Bowling, according to the Texas Special Olympics team, is the second-most popular sport, aside from Track and Field which is only offered in the Summer Games.
“We have different categories,” Twyla Allen, Pflugerville ISD Bowling coach said. “We have athletes that bowl with rims and we have athletes that bowl individual, and we just continue to stress the importance of the practice and just keep them moving and lots and lots of encouragement, lots of volunteers to come in and help do this job to help these guys get ready for this competition.”
This is the 23rd annual Special Olympics Winter Games in Texas. The closing ceremony will be held on Saturday followed by the much anticipated Victory Dance.
