Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Whistler creates 50th chapter of Special Olympics

Interested athletes, coaches and volunteers can attend info sessio

By Alison Taylor

Whistler has scored another Olympic coup.

In addition to hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, the resort municipality has just become the 50 th community in B.C. to create a chapter of the Special Olympics, allowing local athletes with intellectual challenges to train and compete with other Special Olympians.

“The interest in sports is here and so it would just be a natural fit to have another pocket of athletes come out of here,” said Nina Watts, manager of sport and coach development with the B.C. Special Olympics.

It is not clear how many athletes could qualify for the Special Olympics in the Whistler, Pemberton and Mount Currie areas. Squamish, which has a larger population that those three areas combined, has 15 athletes who train for the Special Olympics.

“We don’t have an expectation (on the number of athletes),” said Councillor Tim Wake, who is a part of the new local executive of the Special Olympics. “We just want to get all the ones that are keen.”

To that end the local chapter is hosting a two-hour afternoon information session on Saturday, April 8 for anyone interested in volunteering with the organization, any athletes who may be interested in competing, or any coaches.

“Based on the athletes that we get that come forward we’ll look at what the interests are and then the executive, along with the coaches, will help to book the facilities and get the programs running,” said Watts.

It works like any other sports organization she added, with athletes training for an hour to an hour and a half every week for about 12 weeks in preparation of competitions. There are local, regional, provincial and national championships from year to year.

Watts said it was surprising given Whistler’s athletic focus that the Special Olympics had no presence here. But it just takes one person to be the driving force, she added.

That ‘one’ in Whistler is Vera Davis, whose daughter Marisa has intellectual challenges.

The Davis family lives in Vancouver and come to Whistler most weekends. Here Marisa has honed her skills on the mountains since she was a young girl, first with private ski lessons and then through the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program.

“We were really blessed with the tremendous support we received,” said Davis.

But she wondered about the other people in the corridor who perhaps weren’t as lucky as Marisa, who perhaps couldn’t afford private ski lessons or day tickets on the mountains. What happened to those people?

With 49 Special Olympics chapters throughout the province, why wasn’t there one for people in Whistler, Pemberton and Mount Currie she asked.

“I think because of the high profile of the Olympics and the Paralympics that the Special Olympics is totally forgotten,” said Davis.

And that was her impetus for getting started.

While still often confused with the Paralympics, which is for elite athletes with physical disabilities, the Special Olympics is for athletes with intellectual challenges. Technically that means athletes with an IQ of 70 or below can qualify for the Special Olympics. Watts said the athletes’ intellectual challenges vary widely.

“We’ll have athletes with autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, learning disabilities,” said Watts. “So you will have very, very high functioning athletes that you would walk by and you would talk to and you would never know (have intellectual challenges), and we’ll also have lower functioning athletes that would have more severe mental disabilities.”

Despite the range, they have one thing in common — they are all athletes training for competition. But it isn’t just about competing for medals, said Watts.

“We always say we’re more than just winning in sport,” she added. “We’re winning in life and sport is the vehicle we use to target this population and get them out. But they gain so much more than sports skills. It’s life skills that are going to carry them through everything they do and make them valuable members of society.

“So it’s building self-esteem and building confidence and realizing the potential of what you can do.”

There are 3,500 competitors in the province; 3 million worldwide.

There are 14 official sports in the Special Olympics, among them 5- and 10-pin bowling, soccer, softball, speed skating, alpine skiing, and floor hockey. The competitions rotate on a four-year basis, like the Olympic Games, with summer sports and winter sports.

With all the Olympic focus in Whistler it is a big coup to get the community on board as the 50 th in B.C. to have a local Special Olympics chapter, said Watts.

The designation of the 50 th local chapter comes 26 years after Special Olympics B.C. was formed in 1980.

For more information on how to get involved head to the open house on Saturday, April 8 at Myrtle Philip School, from 4 to 6 p.m. There will be a presentation at 4:15 p.m. followed by refreshments.