Conditional Abilities in Young Special Olympics Athletes Who Practice Unified Football

IntroductionThe Special Olympics, an international organization founded by Eunice Kennedy Sliriver, carries on the purpose of socially integrating people affected by intellectual and mental disability(Pfanner, Marcheschi2005).The activity program envisages competition among equally skilled people, which is the best way to test your own athletic abilities and to evaluate your own progress, in order to promote physical, mental, social and spiritual growth without any racial, national, geographical, age and religious discrimination.(D'Intino, Oronzo, Di Marco, 2005).The Special Olympics, which belongs to the IPC section-international Paralympic Coimnettee, offers millions of disabled youth and adults the possibility of doing some sports and avails itself of the contribution of family members who are directly involved and of those who, every year, help organize thousands of events all over the world.Competitions are held with the affiliation to Sport Accord, an organization which was established in 2009 by the union of the historic organizational initials, such as GAISF, ASOIF, AIOWF and ARISF which, after instituting the sports activity for mentally disabled people, have also overseen its development.Internationally speaking, the most important event is called The Special Olympic Games, which provides for the implementation of several competitions in diversified disciplines both summer and winter (D'Intino, Oronzo, Di Marco, 2005).The Games take place every four years with the summer and winter events staggered in two years. The last summer games were held in Greece in 2011, whereas the winter games was held in Korea in 2013.MethodAddressee and ObjectivesA sample of 12 athletes between the ages of 15 and 18 and another group of 12 who are able-bodied partners of the same age. Disabled and able-bodied athletes were suited to the agonistic medical-sportive examination and they play football. The partners were members of the same class, attending the third year.The objectives are the promotion of the social integration through sports and by implementing specific didactic and educational methodologies; involving disabled people in sports activities; increasing resistant abilities, in order to improve performance during the competition.The research, done by an observatory method, with the administration of tests (Marella,Risaliti, 2007)and the manual and computerized survey of data, was realized over a sample of 24 athletes, among whom 18 are boys and 6 are girls, assisted by 24 able-bodied athletes, of whom 6 males and 6 females.The course was structured over a time frame of 7 months, from October to April, with initial (Tables 1,2), intermediate (Table 3 and Graphics 1,2) and final screenings (Tables 4,5 and Graphics 3,4,5,6). Participants were distributed the ''Sargent test" (high explosive strenght ), the "Cooper test" (resistance), "Long Jump from a standing start" (explosive strength forward) and the "30 metres sprint" (speed).The initial screening of the institute allowed the subdivision of the participants into 2 groups, group A and B, based on 2 fundamental judge enterions. The first is refened to the most important strength, resistance and speed data, the second is the relationship-side, signalled by the teachers as a type of predisposition to collaboration and to the ability of stimulating disabled athletes to overcome the difficulties met during the course.The two groups, during the agonistic year, followed the normal method of training (Barba, Tafuri, 2007)prepared by the technical staff, consisting of weekly-training sessions, during extra-curricular time, characterized by athletic, technical and tactic exercises, as well as by the simulation of competition during the training.Only group B was given 12 supplementary sessions in total, with a media of twice monthly meeting. The motor proposals were shown alternating the global methodology to the analytical, by using also the deductive approach for normative and motor development. …