In a Facebook Live event on Tuesday afternoon, Special Olympics Montana announced that their 2020 Summer Games will take place virtually. Participants can take part from anywhere, and will be able to submit results, photos, and videos to Special Olympics Montana’s website at somt.org .
The games will take place over the course of nine weeks, beginning with an opening ceremony on May 17 and ending with the closing ceremony on July 22. Both of those ceremonies will take place on the organization's Facebook and YouTube pages.
The nine-week period will consist of four, two-week “quarters” and one week off for the Fourth of July. Each quarter, new activities/events will be posted online. There will be instructions, how-to videos and even different levels of difficulty for varying ability levels.
The events are designed so that they can be completed in any location, with equipment that most people should be able to find around their house. For example, the Quarter 1 events are a 10-yard dash, ball throw, squats, and ball kick. Each event has 3 levels of difficulty, so that anyone can participate.
Results are due 11 days after the events are released.
Special Olympics of Montana Vice President of Sports Jamie Wood said that one of the positives to come out of this decision was that the games will now be more accessible, and people can compete from all across the state.
“We have a lot of teams that do attend our traditional state summer games, but for some, it's just too far,” Wood explained. “It's too much to travel, it's too much stimulation for some of our athletes. This is an opportunity for them to maybe join in on a competition that normally they didn't so we encourage everyone to get involved.”
The official dates of the games are May 18 to July 17. Click here to visit the website for more information .
