At the Special Olympics Unified Cup in Detroit, Egypt’s Special Olympics women’s unified team showed off their talent to beat the Caribbean Islands 6-0 and win the bronze medal for the second time in their history. Egypt were the bronze medalists in 2018 in Chicago.
Egypt lost the opening match to the US 3-1, beat Sri Lanka, lost to Costa Rica on penalty kicks 5-4 before overpowering the Caribbean team for the bronze medal.
Corner Ballpark hosted all the Egyptian team matches throughout the tournament.
Unified Sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding. In Unified Sports, teams are made up of people of similar age and ability.
Special Olympics is the world’s largest sports organisation for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities, providing year-round training and activities to five million participants and Unified Sports partners in 172 countries.
Featuring 24 nations and over 300 footballers, the Special Olympics Unified Cup presented by Toyota kicked off in Detroit on 31 July showing the world how the power of sport builds and shapes a diverse community that unites and empowers people of all abilities, from all backgrounds.
Ten women’s teams and 12 men’s teams qualified for the tournament, the first Special Olympics sports event after Covid-19 invaded the world. Because all field events were halted and all Special Olympics athletes trained online, the excitement was palpable when the Special Olympics Unified football Cup 2022 got underway. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region was presented by two women’s teams, Egypt and the UAE, (which collected the silver medal) and two men’s teams: Saudi Arabia (which snatched the men’s gold medal) and Morocco (which finished in fourth place).
One of the biggest draws of the tournament, which ended 6 August, was football, called soccer in the US, the world’s most popular sport. The week-long event showcased talents and abilities on the pitch to change the stereotype stories about people with intellectual disabilities and their challenges trying to include them more in the society and attract other athletes to the movement.
Egyptian Minister of Youth and Sports Ashraf Sobhi congratulated the team for their performance and holding on to the bronze medal for the second consecutive time. “All Egyptians are very proud of you and your achievement. You have never failed us and we are going to support you forever,” said Sobhi who received the team before traveling to the United States and acted as a cheerleader as he gave them the support needed.
Special Olympics Egypt Board Chairman Hani Mahmoud, who was accompanying the team, said he was “very proud of my girls. They have exerted their utmost effort especially after a long period of Covid-19 isolation which affected not only us but the whole world. Egyptian women always prove that they are up to the challenge.”
Special Olympics Egypt coach Fayza Rahim expressed her happiness. “I am very satisfied with the team’s performance, especially that we were able to win the bronze medal for the second straight time. We faced strong teams and the level of competition has risen a lot so I am very happy that we were able to do it for the second time. We came in third place at the first Unified Cup in Chicago. Our goal was to do better than that.”
Farah Samir, Special Olympics Egypt team captain said, “We did our best to win. We were full of insistence and enthusiasm to win in spite of the fatigue we suffered from as we travelled for a very long distance and we had no time to rest. We had to play a match every day. But I have enjoyed the experience very much. It is very inspiring to play among a unified team and to help your partner to feel included and be a part of our societies that are well taken care of and looked at with respect and appreciation. Each one of us has a talent and it is only a matter of how we manifest these talents.”
“The past few years have not been easy, but our athletes have continued to shine a light of positivity that brought us all together again,” SO MENA Region Chairman and Regional Director Ayman Abdel-Wahab said. “Our athletes and our movement are showing the world the importance of inclusion, the importance of community, and that everyone has gifts to be celebrated.
“I am very proud of the performance of our MENA region athletes and teams in the Unified Cup,” Abdel-Wahab said. “We have worked hard and overcame all obstacles to continue working with our athletes and programmes even during the Covid-19 lockdown and it proved that we have succeeded and this is the fruit of our dedication and hard work. I thank the Special Olympics movement for giving our athletes such a golden opportunity to show their talents to the whole world and send a message that we are all equal.”
*A version of this article appears in print in the 11 August, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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