Famous Supporters
The Special Olympics movement has attracted the support of a number of international sportsmen and other celebrities, including Rafer Johnson, Bono, Joe Jonas, Derek Poundstone, Padraig Harrington, Jackie Chan, Zhang Ziyi, Yao Ming, Nadia Comaneci, Bart Conner, Vanessa Williams, Mary Alice Pearce DeVane, Colin Farrell and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali and Quincy Jones took part in a 2003 Global Youth Summit at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Dublin, Ireland. U.S. President Bill Clinton took part in a Global Youth Summit during the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
In 2011, Princess Charlene of Monaco, herself a former Olympian, was named as a Global Ambassador for Special Olympics. Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps was also named a Global Ambassador and has taken part in aquatics clinics for Special Olympics swimmers in Shanghai, China and elsewhere. Other celebrity supporters include Olympic stars Michelle Kwan, Apolo Ohno, Scott Hamilton, actress Brooklyn Decker and football star Dani Alves
Read more about this topic: Special Olympics
Famous quotes containing the words famous and/or supporters:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)