JEDDAH, 29 February 2008 — The first Athletics Championship for Athletes with Special Needs was organized last weekend at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium here.
A total of 132 athletes in under 18 and over 18 age brackets pitted skills in 109 events in the first competition of its kind over three days.
Makkah athletes ruled the meet with 18 gold, 16 silver and 2 bronze medals. Abha came second with 15-11-6 medal tally, Madinah third with 15-3-5, Jazan fourth with 7-6-0, Taif fifth (6-2-4), Najran sixth (5-0-0), Jeddah seventh (3-4-2), Abha eighth (2-0-0), and Al-Baha ninth (0-1-2).
This championship was special, according to Adel Al-Jadan, International referee and head of referee committee at the Saudi Federation for Special Needs.
He said, “The federation requested we run the athletics championship and gather all its athletes with special needs in one event. At first it was surprising news, but then thanks to Hassan Al-Hamdan the new project ran smoothly.”
Al-Hamdan, is the father of the world swimming champion who is physically and mentally disabled, Abdulrahman. “Because of my child I had to be interested in this world of athletes of special needs,” he said.
Considering athletics include a huge number of disciplines and categories according to the needs, he said, “I thought of building a computer program which would help them run their events and save efforts and is dedicated to the referees and technical committees who would only add the results.”
Each club would send the personal info of the players along with the disability and in which discipline they play, and it would all be added to the program and then to the federation to approve.
The program he explained was five years in the making, finally used officially this year in this event. It was tried on several occasions to ensure it works properly and in 1423 it impressed the region when it was tested during the GCC championship, he said.
Al-Jadan said, “We used to run these tournaments and spend up to three or more hours arranging where each athletes should sit. Mistakes also used to happen while calculating and recording the scores, not to mention athletes are only allowed to participate in three events and all of these points were, thank God, now organized via this program and posted accurately.”
Al-Jadan then said because they were organized and the players arrived a day in advance it reflected on the athletes performance and on the success of the event regardless of the huge number of athletes.
However, the international referee said they faced a problem every time a football match is going to run in the same stadium. “Prince Sultan ibn Fahd is a great supporter and had promised us a stadium dedicated to the athletes with special needs in Riyadh, and we really hope we could see it soon because we are in great need for it.”
These athletes with special needs had brought many laurels to the Kingdom, Al-Jadaan stressed. “And it is the least we could do to them, a place where they could train and enjoy the gifts God gave them to excel in sports.”
