SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The 1987 International Summer Special Olympics came to a close Friday with Vice President George Bush exhorting the athletes to salute the founder of the Special Olympics program, Eunice Shriver.
The games brought 4,717 mentally retarded athletes from the 50 states and 70 countries to the campuses of Saint Mary's College and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend for a week of competition in 14 sports.
'I think it would be appropriate to salute that individual who brought together so many countries in unity and harmony,' Bush said.
In 1963, Shriver began holding an informal summer camp for the mentally retarded athletes in the backyard of her Maryland home. Those informal gatherings eventually grew to become the Special Olympics program, which held its first international games in Chicago's Soldier Field in 1968 with 1,000 athletes from three countries -- the United States, France and Canada.
Echoing the sentiments of the games, Bush said the athletes should remember they are all winners.
'You have shown us it's not what state or what country you are from, but what you become,' he said. 'What's important is not that you jumped the highest or ran the fastest but that you gave it your best and you never gave up.
'Keep it up, keep being yourselves and keep spreading that love,' the vice president said.
The Edmund P. Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center, site of the closing ceremonies celebration, was a awash with color and noise even before the ceremonies began as the various delegations applauded themselves and their fellow competitors.
