Despite forecasts of unbearably cold weather and last-minute changes to courses and event schedules, a record number of volunteers and over 140 participating teams are eagerly anticipating the third annual Winter Special Olympics set to take place Saturday at the Dartmouth Skiway.
The recent cold front caused freezing complications and forced the winter games management team to make last-minute changes to the games' structure, games director Pete Bleyler said.
Due to the freezing of Garipay Field, the designated location for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, those events must shift to the Skiway, where a 100-meter course was created with artificial snow. Constructing the course on the Skiway meant removing several longer races and relays. Other events may be cancelled depending on coaches' decisions Saturday morning, Bleyler said.
In addition, the anticipation of potential frostbite and other cold-related injuries prompted the management team to create an unstructured time schedule. Instead of keeping to an enforced timetable, the athletes will have the opportunity to take frequent breaks in the ski lodge following their races.
The harsh weather conditions have not caused a decrease in volunteer participation, however. Dartmouth students and Hanover community members turned out in record-high numbers to help organize and advertise the event.
Volunteer recruitment coordinator Natalie Babij '05 said that the local Special Olympics games have expanded in the past few years. Babij placed signs around Hanover, met with the management team and advertised the event at a volunteer fair earlier this term to lure students to the Skiway to help out.
"The recent connection between the College and the Dartmouth Club of Upper Valley has really allowed the winter games to expand," Babij said. "The organization has existed for three years and word has spread among different crops of kids of the event's success."
Babij joined two other Dartmouth undergraduates, Andrew Rand '07 and Christian Littlejohn '05, and the Dartmouth Club of the Upper Valley to monitor the amount of volunteers and facilitate tasks for each participant.
Although the primary sponsor of this weekend's games remains the DCUV, many individuals and local organizations made donations to the event. Special Olympics organizers said they noticed a similarly heightened level of interest in contributing funds as they did among volunteers.
The games depends on the Special Olympics New Hampshire organization, with its own money-raising capabilities, for much of its funding. The Dartmouth Skiway provides rentals, and various local businesses made additional contributions.
The event will begin with athletes marching from the ski lodge to the opening ceremonies area. They will be led by a color guard from Dartmouth's army reserve officers' training corps. The North Country Chordsmen, a local barbershop group, will sing the national anthem followed by an invocation by Bob Edwards, the interim minister at the Lyme Congregational Church.
DCUV President Carey Heckman and College President James Wright will deliver the opening remarks at the ceremony, which will dramatically conclude after Susan Wright leads a Special Olympics oath as an athlete skis down the mountain holding a lit torch.
While bringing together individuals from the Upper Valley to compete in an athletic contest, the event also helps prepare for the Special Olympics Summer Games, which Dartmouth students will run in their entirety for the first time this year.
"Students who will be organizing the summer games will utilize the winter event as a template for how to organize the summer activities," Littlejohn said. "It is a chance for those coordinators to use the knowledge and experience of the past members as an easy transition to host such a large event."
All three coordinators believe the Special Olympics event embodies the spirit of building new friendships and engaging in sociable competition.
"It never feels like a volunteer project," Rand said. "We are merely hanging out with friends, and that is how they perceive it as well. It gives the athletes an opportunity to excel in an activity for which they have been training and practicing."
