SO Gibraltar Team Win Further Medals At World Summer Games
In another action packed day at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin, SO Gibraltar continued to build on their Tuesday medal haul with victories in the equestrian and bowling events.
A statement from Special Olympics Gibraltar follows below:
In the equestrian event JJ Buttigieg came in 3rd in his first finals event to claim the bronze medal whilst fellow rider Glen Wimbledon came in 6th position in his final. Shane Martinez and Patrick Slater came in second position in their men’s doubles bowling final to claim the silver medal.
On the track Marvin Zammit came in bronze medal position in the men’s 1,500m final with a personal best of 5:52m but was subsequently disqualified due to the maximum effort rule which, with it’s strict enforcement, has caused a lot of controversy in these games. Marvin was over 10 seconds faster than his personal best and fell foul of the rule designed to ensure that athletes do not submit lower qualifying times in order to get into a lower division.
After their victory against Germany yesterday the SO Gibraltar futsal team were on a high but faced tough opposition in SO Uruguay, made worse with two SO Gibraltar players out due to injury. Uruguay had a full team of 10 so could rotate more. On top of that the weather has changed in Berlin and teams faced 30 degree heat on Wednesday. Gibraltar battled hard in the first half to defend but at half time they found themselves two goals down. In the second half Uruguay added a further two goals with Gibraltar conceding an own goal in the last seconds of the match. Despite the 5-0 score line the Gibraltar side performed well in the face of adversity, against one of the best Special Olympic sides in the World.
