Talk:Special Olympics

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Is that a real picture of the 2004 Special Olympics winner?

What're the requirements to participate in the special olympics, exactly?

Hello The Official website of the Special Olympics has a general rules document available at:

http://www.specialolympics.com/Special+Olympics+Public+Website/English/About_Us/General+Rules.htm

The following is a quote from that page:

"The General Rules use the phrase “persons with mental retardation” when describing the individuals eligible for participation in Special Olympics. Programs may substitute for that phrase a reference to “mental handicap,” “mental disability,” “intellectual disability” or other phrases approved by Special Olympics, Inc. as provided in Section 10.01, if that alternate terminology is recognized by their respective national governments."

As the parent of an athlete I work with athletes with a wide range of functional levels, including high functioning individuals who hold jobs and are able to drive. If the individual has an intellectual disability which would make participation in maintstream sports difficult or impossible then the Special Olympics should certainly be considered.

Contents 1 Why 2 Revisions 3 Even if you win 4 Out-dated

[edit] Why

Why did Sarajevo or Bosnia give up the rights to host the special olympics, they are stupid turning down an events that cold help their economy.

[edit] Revisions

This page and Special Olympic Games duplicate a lot of content, which has led to discussions about merging the two. I think it is more reasonable to remove the duplication and leave two articles, this one focussed on the organization and another focussed on the games. That is the same structure seen for the Olympics and Paralympics, with articles for the IOC and IPC distinct from the games that they organize. I have prepared a revised version of this page and will then move on to Special Olympic Games. Eron 15:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Even if you win

The reference to the "Arguing on the Internet is like running in the Special Olympics..." meme is unnecessarily vague. It's not really a meme at all; it's a particular phrase superimposed on a particular picture. One can easily guess why the image of Racer 192 is not included, since it likely is a copyrighted photo, but obfuscating the second half of the couplet seems a concession to good taste/political correctness, which would be better served by not mentioning the phenomenon at all. Asat 00:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but I kind of think it should go; it doesn't belong with the tone or focus of the rest of the article. Far be it from me to be PC (I know everyone says that), but look: Special Olympics jokes are all over the place (and the best can be pretty funny); it's one of the most common off-color joke themes out there. The fact that one of the recent humorous uses of this joke template happened to be an Internet meme doesn't make it noteworthy enough to mention individually, among all the others, in the article on SO. A much better idea, I think, would be to mention the SO's general prominence in humor of this sort; that definitely go in. The other culture references are of more individual interest because they do not fit that particular well-trod theme.205.212.73.217 11:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Good work. BTW when did "jokes" become "memes"? Steve Dufour 18:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I took off some of the trivia. South Park gets enough mention on WP already and the other 2 did not seem to be notable, being sourced only by their own websites. Steve Dufour 16:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Out-dated

The article needs to be updated, as there is no mention of the current 2007 Special Olympics in Shanghai, China. Saphius 11:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This article is about the organization called Special Olympics. The event you refer to is the Special Olympics World Games. It is listed on that page, and has its own article linked from there. - Eron ^Talk 11:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, my bad. However, it was very difficult to differentiate between the event and the organisation, unlike with the normal Olympics. Saphius 11:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not sure why. I thought the first paragraph of the article was fairly clear. In any case, I've added a note to the top of the page to reinforce the distinction. - Eron ^Talk 11:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

That's skim-reading fer ya... ^^'; end of discussion Saphius 11:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)