Special Olympics funding drive to be launched

A €16m fund-raising drive will be launched today to train 16,000 disabled athletes for the next Special Olympics.

The campaign is intended to build on the success of the Special Olympics which were hosted in Ireland in 2003.

Special Olympics Ireland director Mary Davis said that it would cost around €1,000 to train each athlete,

“Our ambition is to double the number of athletes from 8,000 to 16,000. They will train on a weekly and daily basis in clubs that we will set up for them and they will participate in competitions at regional and national level.”

Under the ambitious plan, around 300 of the top athletes will be selected for the Irish team to travel to the Special Olympics in Shanghai in 2007.

Special Olympics Ireland is launching an intensive two-month ‘Get Up, Get Out and Get Active’ campaign to pay for the cost of training all the new athletes.

Ms Davis said it was designed to allow people to raise money through sponsored exercise.

“With all the statistics about the lack of physical activity and opportunities for the public, we thought if we can run a campaign to coincide with that to get people a bit more active, and to support the Special Olympics at the same time, that would be a win-win situation,” she said.

Around 50 networks of volunteers in local areas were established last year and a further 60 are planned for this year.

Ms Davis said a newly-established Special Olympics network had hosted an open day for disabled people in Claremorris, Co Mayo, which had used the town’s swimming pool, football pitches and tennis courts.

“It’s tapping into what’s there already. Most of our resources will go on people training people.”

The fundraising campaign is being supported by the Irish Sports Council, the Department of Health and Eircom.

Plans to launch it last January were abandoned in the wake of the tsunami disaster in South East Asia.

It will be launched in Dublin today by the Special Olympics Athlete Anne Foley and Minister of State at the Department of Health Sean Power.