The 2022 Special Olympics World Winter Games (russian: Всемирные зимние игры Специальной Олимпиады 2022 г.) were a cancelled international

multi-sport event A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports among organized teams of athletes from (mostly) nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of interna ...

for athletes with

intellectual disabilities Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...

planned to be held in

Kazan Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering a ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

on January 21–27. They would have been the 12th edition of the Special Olympics World Winter Games to be held by the Special Olympics International.

Host selection

The Games were originally planned to be held in

Åre Åre () is a locality and one of the leading Scandinavian ski resorts situated in Åre Municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden with 3,200 inhabitants in 2018. It is, however, not the seat of the municipality, which is Järpen. 25% of the local eco ...

and

Östersund Östersund (; sma, Staare) is an urban area (city) in Jämtland in the middle of Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth-largest lake, Storsjön, ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

in 2021. However, on December 20, 2019, the

Swedish Paralympic Committee The Swedish Parasport Federation and Swedish Paralympic Committee ( sv, Svenska Parasportförbundet och Sveriges Paralympiska Kommitté), is the umbrella organization for parasport in Sweden. It was formerly known as the Swedish Sports Organizati ...

announced that they would cancel their plans on conducting the Games there due to insufficient funds to organize the event. On June 29, 2020, it was announced that

would host the 12th Special Olympics World Winter Games in 2022.

Postponement and cancellation

The Games would have been held between January 22–28, 2022 but was postponed to January 2023 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Following the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, the Special Olympics International decided to cancel the event due to logistical and athlete safety issues.

Sports

A total of seven sports at five different venues were planned to be competed on the 2022 Special Olympics: * * * * * * *

Venues

Five venues were planned to be used for the 2022 Special Olympics:

References

External links

Official website
{{Special Olympics Special Olympics Special Olympics World Winter Games Sports events postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic Multi-sport events cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic Sports events affected by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine