Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Wiki

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Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Wiki
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Wiki
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Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities, providing year-round training and activities to 5 million participants and Unified Sports partners in 172 countries. Special Olympics competitions are held every day, all around the world—including local, national and regional competitions, adding up to more than 100,000 events a year. Like the International Paralympic Committee, the Special Olympics organization is recognized by the International Olympic Committee; however, unlike the Paralympic Games, Special Olympics World Games are not held in the same year nor in conjunction with the Olympic Games.

The Special Olympics World Games is a major event put on by the Special Olympics committee. The World Games alternate between summer and winter games, in two-year cycles, recurring every fourth year. The first games were held on July 20th, 1968, in Chicago, Illinois, with about 1000 athletes from the U.S. and Canada. At those first games, honorary event chair Eunice Kennedy Shriver announced the formation of the Special Olympics organization. International participation expanded in subsequent games. In 2003, the first summer games held outside the United States were in Dublin, Ireland with 7000 athletes from 150 countries. The most recent World Summer Games were held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, from March 14th to the 21st, in 2019. This marked the first Special Olympics World Games to be held in the Middle East. The next World Summer Games will be held in Berlin, Germany, between June 16th to the 25th, 2023. This will be the first time for Germany to host the Special Olympics World Games.

The first World Winter Games were held in 1977 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, US. Austria hosted the first Winter Games outside the United States in 1993. The most recent Special Olympics World Winter Games were held in Graz, Schladming and Ramsau, Austria, from March 14th, 2017, to March 25th, 2017. During the World Winter Games of 2013 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the first Special Olympics Global Development Summit was held on "Ending the Cycle of Poverty and Exclusion for People with Intellectual Disabilities", gathering government officials, activists and business leaders from around the world.

History with the Macy's Parade[]

The organization was first represented at the 1983 Parade, as the athletes rode on The Showboat float with The Cast of NBC's We Got it Made.

Two decades later, a new generation of Special Olympics athletes would lead the 2003 Parade with executive producers Robin Hall and Chris Meier.

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