The 2013 PyeongChang Special Olympics World Winter Games will be held in Pyeongchang and Gangneung, Gangwon Province, from Jan. 29 to Feb. 5.

The Special Olympics is a global sporting event for people with intellectual disabilities seeking to remove social prejudice against them. The PyeongChang Games will be the first Special Olympics hosted by Korea.

About 3,300 athletes and officials from 133 countries will participate in 55 events of seven sports ― alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, speed skating, figure skating and floor hockey.

In the Special Olympics, unlike the Paralympics, record or ranking competition is not as meaningful as participation itself. Sometimes participants in last place receive more applause than those at the top.

Three medals, gold, silver and bronze, are awarded in the Special Olympics, but unlike in the Olympics or Paralympics, competitors from fourth to eighth place are also decorated with ribbons.

Organizers for the 2013 Special Olympics have prepared for a variety of non-sport and cultural programs, including a “host town,” which is a nationwide pre-games home stay, health check-ups, K-pop concerts and Korean cultural experiences.

How it began

The Special Olympics began in the early 1960s, when Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, saw how unjustly and unfairly people with intellectual disabilities were treated.

She held a summer day camp for young people with intellectual disabilities in her own backyard. The goal was to learn what these children could do in sports and other activities ―- and not dwell on what they could not do. This vision eventually grew into the global Special Olympics movement.

The first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held in Chicago on July 19-20, 1968.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)