The 2015 Alberta Special Olympics Winter Games will be arriving in Grande Prairie in less than a month, and organizers have nearly everything in place.
Organizing Committee Chair Christy Ellen says she really hopes to see the community come out and support the athletes, both the those from here and across the province, while the games are on.
“For a lot of them, this is the pinnacle of their sport career. Some of them will go onto nationals in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland in 2016, and then the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria. So this is a launching point, and it would be really great if we could show them a hometown contingency that’s behind them.”
Unfortunately the weather has not been very cooperative, and Ellen says now all they really need is some snow and cooler temperatures before the games roll into town.
Now we’re just trying to dot our i’s, cross our t’s, and pray for snow. So I’m not really worried about it yet, but if we continue having +6 days, snowshoeing might be a little hard, it might be more like snow-mudding or something like that.
Around 500 athletes and 150 coaches will be here during the games, which are set for February 20 to 22.