Background:
- Cosmo: Cosmopolitan Industries is located in Saskatoon.
It is a member of the Saskatchewan Association of Rehabilitation Centres.
Cosmo provides programming and opportunities – both vocational and
recreational – to the people it serves. Work skills are taught through
the provision of services and development of products. Cosmopolitan’s
two largest initiatives are its Waste Reduction Initiative and Golf Division.
- Speed Skating: These skaters can go fast! Speeds can
reach 48 km/h in sprint races. The ice surface is a skating oval of 400
metres or 111 metres. Speed skaters wear tight uniforms to reduce wind resistance.
Protective equipment like helmets, kneepads, and gloves are worn. They wear
skates that have longer blades than those of hockey players, so they can
make better contact on the ice. The blades can be up to 45 cm long. Skates
are different for long-track and short-track skating.
- Special Olympics: The Special Olympics is an international
program of year-round sports training and athletic competition for more
than one million children and adults with disabilities. There are Special
Olympics programs in nearly 150 countries. In Saskatchewan there are 22
participating communities (8 Zones), with 1,500 registered athletes and
500 registered volunteers. The Special Olympic oath is: “Let me win.
But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”
- 2001 Games: The 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games
were held in March in Anchorage, Alaska, USA. Nearly 7000 people from more
than 80 countries were in Alaska for this international sporting event.
