Over 500 dis­abled ath­letes rep­re­sent­ing 17 or­gan­i­sa­tions proud­ly gath­ered with fam­i­ly, friends, well-wish­ers, coach­es, vol­un­teers and the Spe­cial Olympics of T&T (SOTT) man­age­ment team for the open­ing of the 2013 Na­tion­al Games on Sun­day.

In ad­dress­ing the crowd, SOTT chair­per­son Nor­ma James said the theme for this year's event was "Say no to the 'R' Word." She ex­plained that "this is the biggest event of the year for all the ath­letes."

James ex­plained the event was the largest of its kind for the year.

"They have trained long and hard all year and now they have come to com­pete," said Jones. She in­di­cat­ed that it was a very im­por­tant time in their lives since it pre­sent­ed them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet with their friends and make new ones from the var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions around the coun­try.

John Delves, Dig­i­cel CEO, in his ad­dress thanked James for her ded­i­ca­tion and hard work as she con­tin­ued to strive for ex­cel­lence for the SOTT. He pledged the com­mit­ment of the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion to the Spe­cial Olympics and said that it all stemmed from Dig­i­cel's chair­man De­nis O'Brien who once head­ed a Spe­cial Olympics Com­mit­tee.

Fi­nal­ly, he urged the ath­letes to "stand shoul­der to shoul­der and con­tin­ue to be ex­tra­or­di­nary."

He then de­clared the SOTT games open and was in­tro­duced, along with Nor­ma James, to ath­letes rep­re­sent­ing the 17 in­sti­tu­tions par­tic­i­pat­ing in the games.

At the end of the cer­e­mo­ny the Spe­cial Olympics torch was brought out by two ath­letes who made one lap around the ground then passed it to James, who then hand­ed it over to Delves. The Dig­i­cel CEO then hand­ed the torch over to the SOTT run­ners who car­ried it out of the sta­di­um.

The teams then ex­it­ed to com­pete in pow­er­lift­ing, ath­let­ics, foot­ball, vol­ley­ball, boc­ce, eques­tri­an, aquat­ics and bas­ket­ball at var­i­ous venues in north­ern Trinidad over the next two days.

At the end of the day, the ath­letes filed in to the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo, to be en­ter­tained with a gala con­cert.

The pro­ceed­ings be­gan with a buzz of ex­cite­ment from all the ath­letes as they await­ed the ar­rival of the "torch of hope" which was car­ried from Ari­ma to the Jean Pierre Com­plex by the largest con­tin­gent ever.

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