DUSHANBE, July 7, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajik athletes have won four medals in VIII Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece.
Ms. Dilbar Sharipova, National Director of Special Olympic Tajikistan, said Farida Nazarova won gold medal, finishing firs in the 100 meter sprint for women and Farrukh Samadov won gold medal, finishing first in the long jump for men. Farrukh Samadov also won silver medal in the 100 meter sprint for men. Besides, Shuhrat Shodiyev won bronze medal for Tajikistan in the 200 meter dash.
Tajikistan was represented by 19 athletes at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Sharipova said. According to her, they competed in swimming, athletics and unifight football.
In all, more than 7,000 athletes from 175 countries of the world participated VIII Special Olympics World Summer Games in Greece. They competed in 21 Olympic-type sports
Special Olympics is the world”s largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions in Olympic-type summer and winter sports to more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries. Alternating between summer and winter, the Special Olympics World Games are held every two years. Often the Games are the largest sporting event to take place in the World that year. There are also local, national and regional competitions in over 175 countries worldwide.
Special Olympics has over 30 Olympic-type individual and team sports that provide meaningful training and competition opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities: alpine skiing; aquatics; basketball; bowling; cross country skiing; figure skating; floor hockey; golf; gymnastics; power-lifting; snowshoe; soccer; softball; tennis; and volleyball.
