Spe­cial Olympics Trinidad and To­ba­go (SOTT) Na­tion­al Di­rec­tor Fer­di­nand Bib­by, has wel­comed the news that spe­cial ath­letes are in line to be added to the na­tion­al sports pol­i­cy’s ath­letes in­cen­tive pro­gramme.

It comes on the heels of SOTT’s high­est ever medal haul at a Spe­cial Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, which end­ed with 57 medals, in­clud­ing 19 gold, 15 sil­ver and 23 bronze medals. It's a vast im­prove­ment from the 2015 World Games when SOTT brought home 48 medals, in­clud­ing 15 gold, nine sil­ver, and 24 bronze. T&T first com­pet­ed at these games in 1983, in Ba­ton Rouge, Louisiana.

The an­nounce­ment was made by the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Sham­fa Cud­joe, on Fri­day evening as she wel­comed home the 44-mem­ber con­tin­gent at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Cud­joe said, “We have right now made a case to the Cab­i­net, which I'm sure will be ap­proved to of­fer a small con­tri­bu­tion and make the Spe­cial Olympics a path and/or pol­i­cy for re­wards and in­cen­tives for ath­letes.”

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day, Bib­by was en­cour­aged by the news. He said, “Any pol­i­cy that deals with spe­cial peo­ple on an equal foot­ing as every­one else would be wel­comed by SOTT.”

Bib­by went fur­ther in ex­plain­ing the sac­ri­fices spe­cial ath­letes make to rep­re­sent the coun­try. He went on, “We see our ath­letes as hav­ing the same is­sues as it re­lates to prepa­ra­tion to par­tic­i­pate at in­ter­na­tion­al games. They would ex­pend the same amount of en­er­gy and de­ter­mi­na­tion to par­tic­i­pate at their lev­el be­cause to them their com­pe­ti­tion is just as im­por­tant and per­form­ing at their best is just as im­por­tant as any oth­er ath­lete.”

He al­so be­lieves the coun­try’s suc­cess in the 2019 World Games will go a long way in in­spir­ing oth­er spe­cial peo­ple around the coun­try to get in­volved in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, and there are places they can reach in sports. How­ev­er, he praised the work of SOTT, and said it went be­yond the play­ing field. “We use sport as a ve­hi­cle to build their con­fi­dence and to build their self-mo­ti­va­tion. It em­pow­ers them to be part of so­ci­ety, so while we do sport, we do more than sport,” Bib­by said.

2019 SOTT World Games Medals

57 Medals

Gold: 19

Sil­ver: 15

Bronze: 23