Ski racers earn trips to next stage of Special Olympics

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By Jody Wiersema | Friday, January 18, 2008 |

Jerry Pitts passes a gate while competing Thursday. (Jeff Cook/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

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Illinois Special Olympics: Skiing

Tony Mettler squeezed his two first-place medals in one hand as he lifted his other in a victorious swoop.

“Watch out in Galena!” the 27-year-old Monmouth, Ill., resident said, as the ski lodge crowd erupted into laughter.

For Mettler, skiing down the snow-covered slopes at Snowstar Winter Sports Park warranted a huge smile.

In fact, ski instructor and volunteer Gary Robbins says they’re pretty infectious.

“These kids — you can’t knock the smile off their faces,” Robbins said.

Those smiles tell the story of how hard each of the 10 Special Olympics athletes have worked to participate in the 2008 Western Illinois Area 4 Winter Special Olympics at Snowstar in Andalusia, Ill.

Ranging from 14 to 40 years old, the group of 10 athletes spent the entire morning and early afternoon Thursday zipping through gates in the giant slalom and gracefully maneuvering in the downhill ski races. The athletes also do snowshoeing in Princeton, Ill.

Working with Special Olympics athletes for the past three decades, volunteer Dianne Hoyt has watched these individuals blossom and grow not only in their skiing abilities but their confidence.

“They’re doing a sport that the general public is sometimes afraid to do,” Hoyt said. “The assurance that they gain from these sports changes their confidence, which affects them physically and emotionally.”

For the past two months, the athletes have spent time training with their volunteers as well as staff at Snowstar. The winter sports park donates all the equipment, fees and trainer time to Special Olympics so everyone can get a chance to participate in the winter sport for free.

Snowstar Ski School Director Blaine Flack has been at the ski resort for 11 years. Flack says there’s not anything more rewarding then seeing someone with a disability have a personal success.

“It’s hard for them, and the athletes put a lot of time into learning to ski,” Flack said. “Skiing is such an individual sport and that gives you individual success. If you made it down the hill faster than last time, you were successful.”

Although each athlete was separated into three divisions based on skill, each of the 10 competitors who weren’t disqualified earned a three-day, two-night trip to Galena’s Chestnut Mountain Ski Resort in early February for the state level. This year, everyone is going.

“It’s so huge to them, just like any state or national level sporting event that your favorite team goes to,” said Cathy Betar, area director for Special Olympics Area 4, which includes Rock Island County and seven other counties. “When people see that this guy or girl can ski, they think maybe that can work for me, too.”

The Special Olympics began 40 years ago in Chicago. To be eligible to participate, one must be at least 8 years old and have demonstrated intellectual disabilities or cognitive delays that require specially designed instruction. More than 20,000 athletes participate in the Illinois Special Olympics alone.

Even though hundreds of individuals have participated in the winter games for the last 24 years, numbers are drastically down from the past few years.

“We’ve had 60 skiers before,” said Hoyt, who blames a lack of funding in schools and other organizations. “We used to have teams from Rocky and Moline High School before, but the supervisor or organizer positions were paid.”

Flack blames an overall lack of interest in skiing as part of the decline.

“Skiing numbers have dropped overall across the United States because people find other outlets for things to do,” Flack said. “I think a lot of special needs and handicapped people might not know that we offer this in the Quad-Cities. Regardless of their handicap, we can get them down the hill.”

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.