Today marks a 1-month until Global ID Sports Week – a week-long celebration of sport for athletes with an intellectual disability.

The initiative, now in its second year, uses the power of social media to grow awareness of opportunities for athletes with an intellectual disability around the world to enjoy sport and competition to the highest level.

This year will mark a particularly special milestone for World Intellectual Impairment Sport – the International Association of Sport for para-athletes with an intellectual disability – as it coincides with the organisations 30th anniversary having been founded in 1986.

Amaury Russo, World Intellectual Impairment Sport President explained “Sport for athletes with an intellectual disability does not enjoy the same high profile as other areas of sport and so this year a number of our member organisations will be holding events and activities around the World in an effort to grow awareness”.

Amongst the activities being held are an athletics championship in the UK and a large multi-sport event in Colombia. It will culminate in the opening ceremony of the 2016 World Intellectual Impairment Sport Athletics Championships (Europe) that take place in Ankara, Turkey.

In 2015, World Intellectual Impairment Sport saw a 1200% increase in its social media activity as a result of the project.

World Intellectual Impairment Sport – the International Federation for sport for para-athletes with an intellectual disability – are pleased to announce the awarding of the 2017 World Intellectual Impairment Sport Athletics Championships to Thailand. The event will be hosted by the Sport Association for Intellectual Disability of Thailand from 12 to 19 May 2017

Following the successful hosting of the 2016 World Intellectual Impairment Sport Asia Swimming Championships – the first World Intellectual Impairment Sport Asia regional championships in any sport – World Intellectual Impairment Sport is excited about the prospect of taking the world championship athletics event to the region for the first time.

With recent editions of World Intellectual Impairment Sport’ largest single sport event having been to Czech Republic, Italy, Brazil, Australia and Tunisia, the 2017 Championships provides an opportunity to engage and showcase athletes with an intellectual disability to a new audience.

Paul Charnvit, President of World Intellectual Impairment Sport Asia, “This is Asia’s first opportunity to host an World Intellectual Impairment Sport world athletics championships and thus a great step forward in allowing Asian athletics athletes to go further into world-class competitions. We hope that the international athletes will have the opportunity to visit the beautiful country of Thailand and take part in developing disabled sports here – the Land of Smiles.”

Over 150 athletes from more than 20 countries are expected to compete across the full athletics programme, making it the biggest athletics event for elite intellectually disabled athletes globally.  For many the World Intellectual Impairment Sport Athletics Championships is the pinnacle to their athletic career and a chance to compete against the best intellectually disabled athletes in the world.

World Intellectual Impairment Sport would like to extend its thoughts and condolences to the people of Ecuador following the news of the devastating earthquake over the weekend.

Many of the cities affected, including Guayaquil, hosted the 2015 World Intellectual Impairment Sport Global Games just a few months ago. World Intellectual Impairment Sport President, Amaury Russo, said “We were saddened to see the pictures of the devastation caused by this earthquake and extend our thoughts to those who lost their lives. On behalf of everybody at World Intellectual Impairment Sport we wish Ecuador well as they begin the process of rebuilding”.

World Intellectual Impairment Sport, the world governing body for sport for athletes with intellectual disability, has announced a partnership with Sport:80, to deliver an online membership and event management platform.

The launch of the project will see World Intellectual Impairment Sport adopt cutting-edge technology which will significantly improve the level of service it is able to deliver to its 78 member organisations. It will also enable World Intellectual Impairment Sport to modernise internal processes due to the technology automating many management and admin tasks.

Nick Parr, Executive Director of World Intellectual Impairment Sport explained his delight at being able to replace cumbersome and expensive paper-based systems with an affordable and innovative cloud-based platform that provides access to real-time information.

“Each year we manage a programme of up to 14 world and regional championships. Having this technology in place will significantly streamline the processes involved in managing these events. It will also provide real-time access to critical information for both World Intellectual Impairment Sport and event hosts, as well as delivering improved services to our member nations, athletes, coaches, officials and volunteers.”

The project is a result of World Intellectual Impairment Sport’s partnership with Sport:80, a UK-based company that specialises in sport management technology. The technology which is being utilised by World Intellectual Impairment Sport, and a host of International Federations and National Governing Bodies of sport, was originally developed by Sport:80 for use during the largest test event for the London 2012 Games.

After it’s highly successful debut, Sport:80 went on to further develop the technology to become an all-encompassing sport management platform which is now making waves in the industry. Gary Hargraves, CEO of Sport:80, expressed the company’s joy at seeing the technology now make a real difference to sports organisations.

“As sports people first and foremost, our vision for the Platform was to make a real difference, both in terms of simplifying and networking the core functions of sport business management and providing opportunities for sports organisations to grow and drive participation. We’re delighted to see this happening with our clients and are looking forward to replicating this with Nick and the World Intellectual Impairment Sport team in years to come.”