Sport
Special Olympics in Shanghai superb: UN adviser

Shanghai, Oct. 6 (Xinhua): United Nations official Adolf Ogi said the organization of the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai was superb, according to the Shanghai Daily on Saturday.

Ogi, the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, arrived in the city on Tuesday to attend the opening ceremony.

"This is the best opening ceremony I've seen," Ogi was quoted as saying by Shanghai Daily.

"I have been to several previous Special Olympics and have seen a lot of opening ceremonies but this one beat all the others. It was really great and I think only the Chinese could do it.

"The show is very important for the intellectual disabled athletes and can give them a strong feeling of equality in our society."

Ogi, a former president of Switzerland, welcomed Swiss athletes and coaches at a reception on Wednesday.

"Before I arrived in Shanghai, I had already heard from our athletes that all the facilities such as hotels, transport, infrastructure and food were perfect," he said.

"Sport, with its joys and triumphs, its pains and defeats, its emotions and challenges, is an unrivalled medium for the promotion of education, health, development and peace," Ogi said.

Sport

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