Tata Steel reaffirmed its policy of encouraging sustained growth of sports and sportspersons today with its move to support the Special Olympics Bharat (SOB) team that will represent India at the Special Olympics World Summer Games at Athens between 25th June and 4th July, 2011. For this, Mr T V Narendran, Vice President (Safety & Flat Products), Tata Steel, handed over a cheque of Rs 15,00,000/- (Rs Fifteen Lakhs only) to Air Marshal Denzil Keelor (Retd.), Chairman, Special Olympics Bharat today.

This is in line with the previous initiatives of Tata Steel wherein it had extended support to the Special Olympics team attending the world games in 2005 and 2007.

This year, a team of 260 athletes, coaches and officials would be representing India in 12 Olympic type sports. Athletes would be participating in Aquatics, Athletics, Table Tennis, Volleyball, Basketball, Cycling, Bocce, Handball, Power Lifting, Football (soccer) and Roller Skating.

The Special Olympics World Games are held once in four years. Special Olympics Bharat has been sending Teams to participate in various sports disciplines. The last World Summer Games was held at Shanghai, China in 2007. The Special Olympics Bharat delegation of 187 special athletes, competed in 12 disciplines bringing home 148 medals of which 36 were Gold, 45 Silver and 67 Bronze.

Special Olympics Bharat, the National Programme based in Delhi, is accredited by Special Olympics International. It is recognized by Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Govt of India, as a National Sports Federation for development of sports for the specially abled persons. It is currently the largest programme in Asia Pacific region. It has established sub-programmes in 31 states and has over 750,000 Registered Special Athletes in its programmes. In addition, thousands of specially trained coaches, families and volunteers support the programme. As part of its Strategic Growth Plan to reach out to as many of the 30 million intellectually disabled people in the country, Special Olympics Bharat has set a target to reach 1000,000 by the end of 2012.

Special Olympics Bharat also participated in the last two World Winter Games held at Nagano Japan in 2005 and Idaho, USA in 2009. At the 2009 Games, the boy’s team won the Gold whereas the Girls team brought Silver, the snow sports teams such as Alpine Skiing, Snow Boarding and Snow Shoes teams brought back 2 Gold, 8 Silver and Bronze.

Special Olympic International is a worldwide organisation founded by Mrs Eunice Shriver, sister of (late) President, John F Kennedy of USA, which promotes the development of sports programme for the intellectually disabled. It is officially recognized body by the IOC and operates in 172 countries.