Seven gold medals for Cayman’s Special Olympians
(CNS): Cayman Islands athletes shone at the 2010 Special Olympics Latin American (SOLA) Regional Games in Puerto Rico, which took place 20 through 27 February. Bringing home thirteen medals, seven of them gold, the athletes were described as role models by Sports Minister Mark Scotland. Swimmer Andrew Smilley (left) won the 100m individual medley and 400m freestyle, runner Cindy Whittaker was first in the 100m and 200m sprint and won her shot put (3kg) event, Solomon Webster took gold in the individual bocce event and Leon Lambert won gold for his shot put (4kg) event.
Special Olympics Cayman Islands (SOCI) sponsored a 14-person delegation to this year’s games, according to a GIS release. The ten athletes, three coaches and delegation head Ms. Antoinette Johnson, participated in preparation for the 2011 Special Olympics Summer World Games in Greece.
“We are extremely pleased with all our athletes. The exposure and experience that the team gained in Puerto Rico will assist them in future regional and global competitions,” said SOCI National Director Kim Landry.
Their next big event will be the Cayman Islands National Games, to be held 5 June this year at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex. “Our athletes rely on support from volunteers, sponsors, friends, family and their communities and we hope to see everyone filling the stands this summer,” Landry added.
“We are very proud of our athletes’ performances. Not only are they proving that Cayman is a Special Olympics powerhouse in the region, they are also role models for us all,” said Sports Minister Scotland.
FINALS – SPECIAL OLYMPICS LATIN AMERICAN REGIONAL GAMES – FEB 2010
Results for Cayman Islands Special Olympics Delegation
Gold 7
Silver 2
Bronze 4
Participation Ribbon 15
Category: Sports
Well done!! Every one of you is a star – medal or not!! And thank you to everyone who worked with all of these athletes – particularly those that taught us to honour and respect our Special Olympians – we’ve come a long way baby!
Well done to the Special Olymipains – don’t know who any of you are, but don’t care – didn’t even know the special olympics were happening, but don’t care. You represented your country and did it proud.
That is more than I can say for some of these comments on here referring to Dow Travers who also represented his country in an event which has made history in Cayman.
Who cares if he has gone to school overseas – at least he will come back to the island with a decent education.
Who cares who his father is, he wasn’t the one who has put in all the hard work to make it to the olympics.
Who cares if he doesn’t spend a lot of his time in Cayman – I haven’t seen a lot of snow here recently – if you do let me know.
The last I heard, our athletes who compete in the Summer olympics also go to school overseas and train overseas.
If you have an issue with the Premier going to the winter olympics and not the special olympics then take it up with him – this is not the fault of Dow.
Some of the earlier comments about Dow representing Cayman said that they didn’t even know who he was therefore he shouldn’t be representing Cayman. Well looking at the list of athletes in this article, I can recognise some of the names – don’t know who they are though. Also some of the names don’t even look Caymanian to me – but does it really matter if they are representing OUR country!!!
Well done to ALL the athletes
Well said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been happy to just see and read and hear some good news!
Congratulations to all the athletes and all involved in any way!
Congratulations, Great Job!!!
Congratulations!! You all make Cayman proud!
A job well done by a wonderful group of Athletes! Congratulations to the coaches and other contributors. The effort is well worth it!
What a great showing!!! Kanza, Kathryn, Quinton, Andrew, Andrew, Tessa, Cindy, Leon, Elena, and Soloman. All you athletes made us proud!!!! Look out world…. Go Cayman!!!!!
Congratulations, all!
Go Kanza Go.
Proud of you girl. Keep up the good work and never stop practicing.
This is wonderful news! Congrats to them all!
This is wonderful news! Congratsto them all!
Wow. I’m sure that I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that we are so, so proud of all of our athletes! Fantastic!!!
And where was our Honarable Premier when this was happening..supporting one athlete
And of course you would have complained if the Premier HAD indeed gone to the Special Olympics too as this would mean an additional expense. Ingorants can never be please. They just complain for the sake of complaining but never have solutions for themselves.
Congratulations to the athletes on their victories!! And congrats to the coaches and supporters.
2011 Special Olympics in Greece. Oh wow!!!!
It’s a shame that everyone has the time to post so much garbage in all of the negative headlines, but no time in their day to post a simple, "Congratulations! Well done to all!" in a thread about our people doing well in competition.
Having said that… Congratulations to everyone involved: coaches, sponsors, and especially the athletes. Well done, and I’m sorry that you don’t get more of the attention that you deserve.
Wow! This is good to hear, keep up the efforts guys.
Congratulations to all these athletes.
Congrats to everyone on your exemplary efforts! We are all very proud of you and your hard work! God bless you all.
Congratulations to these wonderful young Caymanians that have represented us so well. It is VERY sad that their media coverage is virtually non-existent, yet there was such a HUGE media blitz for 1 skier at the "Winter Olympics" someone who has spent the majority of life away from this Island. I guess they would have had more coverage if their parents were "PALS" with McKeeva.
I actually don’t think that Travers received half as much of the coverage as he should have done. Unless I missed it all, in which case it couldn’t have been very effective. Should have been flyers everywhere, etc. That was a HUGE deal–as is this wonderful achievement by our Special Olympians, who have also made us very proud. It just left me wondering where our National Pride had gone to! Let’s wave our flag and wave it high!
Congrats to all the athletes who took part in the Olympics.
I wonder why these athletes weren’t covered in the media like the lone skier in the Winter Olympics.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Congrats to all!! We are so proud of you!!