Special Olympics: Still active after 30 years

From left, Shane Corfield, Frances Mora, Tim Watson and Nancye Milroy have been part of the Whangarei Special Olympics family for more than 30 years. Photo / John Stone

Whangarei's Frances Mora reckons being part of the Whangarei Special Olympics organisation has helped her get a real kick out of life.

Mora is one of an enthusiastic and enduring group of athletes who joined to play sport with other intellectually disabled athletes more than 30 years ago.

The "foremost four" - as Mora, Nancye Milroy, Shane Corfield and Tim Watson are sometimes referred to in local circles - are all still at it, competing week in, week out.

"When I first started, I was 27 and I played indoor basketball and swimming, athletics and indoor bowls ... I tried to play everything I could," Mora said.

And while the sports they play today may have changed along with the faces they compete against, the feeling of camaraderie and the enjoyment they get from playing sport is still the same.

Mora's eventual proficiency at indoor bowls led her to become the regular skip of the Special Olympics top team and then a regular bowler at the Kamo Bowling Club - something she believes she may never have had the confidence to do if not for her experience at Special Olympics.

"Some of us, who want to get out and play sport out in the community, can do it," she said.

The Whangarei group is the fourth such provincial group to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

In the early 1980s, Lower Hutt-based Grant Quinn began training Colin Bailey, an athlete with Down syndrome, alongside mainstream swimmers.

By chance, an American exchange student at the pool asked if Bailey was training for Special Olympics. The question sparked a community effort led by Quinn to establish a New Zealand branch of the worldwide sports movement.

Quinn and his supporters recruited three other swimmers with intellectual disabilities and along with Bailey formed an ad hoc Special Olympics New Zealand team which attended the 1983 Special Olympics World Summer Games in the United States.

Their efforts reverberated around the country and led to the beginnings of what is now a vibrant national organisation with dozens of provincial clubs hosting regular sporting events and less frequent interclub and interprovincial events.

Northland's early Special Olympic history also had an American influence, with Opua's Gary Hack helping set up Northland's original Special Olympics organisation in Whangarei.