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Mar 21 - Gibraltar Athletes Win Silver And Bronze At The Special Olympics World Winter Games

It’s been a busy couple of days for the Gibraltar Special Olympics squad who are currently in Bregenz in West Austria for the World Winter Games.

Friday

In the floor ball Special Olympics Gibraltar lost heavily in their earlier matches with an unlucky first draw against world champions Sweden. They were declared winners in their fourth game against Cyprus who failed to show and they bounced back on Saturday with their first victory against Uruguay, winning 3 - 2. They then lost narrowly to Norway in their last game of divisioning. 

Meanwhile Gibraltar's two alpine skiers were on the slopes on Friday for their initial assessments before doing their divisioning in the Super G slalom event on Saturday. In the intermediate competition Samuel Santos put in good times with a best time of just over 1 minute, whilst teammate Francis Avellano showed huge improvements each time he skied, knocking 10 seconds off his Friday time on Saturday.

In the snow shoe event, Daniela Vinet performed well with a time of 25 seconds in the 25m while in the 100m race Nicholas Danino came in at 18.8 seconds, just ahead of Gino Francis at 24.7 seconds.

Saturday and Sunday

The colours of the Gibraltar flag were proudly displayed as the Gibraltar Special Olympics squad and Minister for Equality Samantha Sacramento paraded at the opening ceremony of the World Winter Games in Schladming in Austria.

After the raising of the Special Olympics flag and the lighting of the flame the crowd were entertained by international entertainers the highlight of which was singer Jason Mraz.

On Sunday the first finals of the Special Olympics World Games took place and in the thrilling alpine skiing finals Gibraltar has achieved its first ever Olympic ski medals.

Within minutes of each other on different slopes Samuel Santos won a hard fought silver in the intermediate Super G slalom event whilst young Francis Avellano won bronze in the novice event missing out on silver position by just a fraction of a second.

In poor weather conditions with a lot of overnight rain the novice event was delayed by half an hour but was well worth the wait. Francis improved yet again on his divisioning time to record a personal best 31.85 seconds which won him the bronze medal and was just 3/10ths of a second behind the silver medal time.

Samuel meanwhile was putting in an equally impressive performance in the intermediate Super G slalom where he fought off a tough field of six in his division to come in second with a time of 1 minute 36 seconds. Both athletes were obviously delighted with their success in what was the first time Special Olympics Gibraltar has entered athletes in a skiing event and only a matter of months since both athletes took up skiing. The athletes received their medals later on Sunday in front of a large crowd in the town centre and both Samuel and Francis attracted a lot of media attention.

Due to the poor weather conditions the snowshoeing event was abandoned for the day. The floor ball competition continued in Graz where Gibraltar had just one game, losing 8:4 to Cyprus.

Monday

If Sunday was the day of the alpine skiers then Monday was definitely the day of the snowshoers in the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria.

Snowshoeing is a sport which Special Olympics Gibraltar have had previous experience in at past World Games but training on the sands of eastern beach is not quite the same as the real thing and the fiercely competitive races held in the snowy mountains of Ramsau proved a real test for our athletes.

One which they were well equal to as proved first by Daniella Vinent who came in second in the final of the 25m sprint in 9.08 seconds to win the silver medal, and in the afternoon by Nicholas Danino and Gino Francis in their respective 100m finals. After initially leading Gino was just pipped at the post in his close division final to be left with the silver medal position with a time of 24.12 seconds whilst Nicholas managed to hold on to win bronze in the top race with 17.63 seconds. A good day with three more medals for team Gibraltar.

It was a much quieter day for the alpine skiers with just the Intermediate Grand Slalom divisioning in which Samuel Santos came home in a respectable 1:03.75. Whilst the floor hockey team in Graz pulled off another morale boosting win against Bharat by six goals to two after losing earlier in the day to Israel.

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