Special Olympics: Great Britain considering bid to host event
- Published
British cyclists Ella Curtis and Niall Guite both won Special Olympics medals, with Curtis taking gold in the 1km time trial and Guite silver in the 25km road race
It would be "spectacular" for Great Britain to host the Special Olympics World Summer Games, says the organisation's chairman Tim Shriver.
Britain has never previously staged the event but is considering a bid to do so, most likely for the 2031 Games.
This year's Special Olympics finishes in Berlin, Germany, on Sunday.
Special Olympics Great Britain chief executive Colin Dyer said "there have been conversations" over "the feasibility" of hosting it in the UK.
He added to BBC Sport: "The absolute point of an event like this in the United Kingdom would be based on how that would change society."
That's a crucial element to the Special Olympics. It is both a competitive sporting environment and a place to promote the integration of people with intellectual disability.
This year's Special Olympics have been a celebration of inclusion for the 7,000 competitors in Berlin, including 82 from Great Britain, who have taken part in 26 sports. The city has turned some of its largest venues into sporting facilities for the Games and there was a party beneath the Brandenburg Gate for the athletes to mark a week of competition.
The Special Olympics global movement would love all of this to happen, for the first time, in Britain. As yet, no cities have been officially allocated the 2027 and 2031 Games.
"I think it would be spectacular to be in Great Britain for Special Olympics World Summer Games," chairman Shriver told BBC Sport.
"Great Britain has welcomed Olympic events and Paralympic events. The Paralympics changed your country, I think, in many beautiful and powerful and important ways. We would love to add to that tradition and invite still greater change and still greater joy. We are an Olympics of joy and we would love to bring that to the extraordinary people and great facilities of Great Britain."
Great Britain's Taylor Mackenzie (right), from Dundee, won two swimming gold medals in Berlin and said "the love for the sport and getting accepted into this amazing competition" has "really spurred me on to my best"
GB's Niall Guite won silver in the 25km cycling road race and his mum, Michelle, is also a GB team official. She sees broad benefits for Britain hosting the Special Olympics.
"I think it would bring a lot more eyes to the movement and to the joy and purpose of it," she told BBC Sport, "It's not about pure sport, it's about giving people an opportunity to be seen and to be heard and to be given a level playing field and a fair place in society."
Niall Guite smiled and said: "I'd really look forward to it, it would be awesome."
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