As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Special Olympics this year, we are taking a look back at the #50moments that have defined the Special Olympics movement here in B.C. and throughout the world.

By 1977, an idea that started in the summer of 1968 in Chicago had taken root. The Special Olympics World Summer Games were firmly entrenched in the sporting world. After just a decade the Summer Games were attracting thousands of athletes with intellectual disabilities from around the world.

Naturally, the next step was winter. Ted Hughes, a local non-profit director working with people with disabilities, got the idea for a Special Olympics World Winter Games on a trip to Minnesota. The idea was picked up by the Steamboat Springs Rotary Club, who put Rotary Club member Mike Barry in charge of making it happen. After much preparation and hard work, Barry travelled to Washington, D.C. to give a presentation to the Kennedys. The result of this presentation was the first-ever Special Olympics World Winter Games in 1977 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. 

The three major U.S. networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC, broadcast the historic event, which featured more than 500 athletes competing in skiing and skating events.

Athletes flew into Denver and were brought to Steamboat Springs by bus, where they were picked up by local host families who welcomed them into their homes and hearts throughout the week. 

The Opening Ceremony saw a crowd of thousands cheering for the athletes as the Steamboat Springs High School band played the Olympic March and the Olympic flag was raised. Eunice Kennedy Shriver addressed the athletes and spectators with her inspiring words: 

“This is, indeed, a week of giving. The families of Steamboat Springs are giving you a home and kindness. Your instructors are giving you the finest skiing and skating instruction in the world. But you Olympians are giving something back to them and the millions who have watched on TV this week, you are giving them the news that it is not the strongest body nor the most dazzling mind that counts; it is the human spirit which is great as any mountain.

“You are giving them the reassurance that although there is in this world much loneliness and suffering, there is also the surprise and wonder of possibility – the reaching out of one person to another and the marvelous unfolding of hope.

“I salute you all with admiration, and welcome you with joy!”

The 1977 Special Olympics World Winter Games featured a host of celebrity supporters, but only the athletes “could be classified as stars,” wrote reporters Tanna Eck and Sharon Kelly in their seven-page spread on the Games in the local Steamboat Springs newspaper. 

“The host families that the Olympians stayed with, all experienced a new kind of joy, with love and affection constantly being exchanged,” they wrote. 

These first World Winter Games opened a whole new arena of competitive sport for Special Olympics athletes, and is now an integral part of Special Olympics programming in many countries around the world. 

Learn more about the upcoming 2019 Special Olympics BC Winter Games in Greater Vernon

Learn about Special Olympics BC’s winter sport programs