Let the Games begin: Special Olympics opening ceremonies held at the Gardens (13 photos)

Athletes from the Sault and across Ontario gathered at GFL Memorial Gardens Thursday for the 2019 Special Olympics Ontario Provincial Winter Games opening ceremonies.

A group of athletes braved bitterly cold weather and ran across the International Bridge from Sault Michigan to Sault Ontario before heading to the ceremonies.

The evening’s lineup of events at GFL Memorial Gardens included athletes, split up into teams from each region of the province, waving to an applauding audience as they entered the arena and took their seats, brief speeches from VIPs, live musical entertainment, the raising of the Games banner and lighting of the Games torch.

Of special note was the awarding of the games first gold medal by Chris Lewis, Sault native, retired OPP commissioner and Games honorary chair, to his brother Rob, a Sault Special Olympian who won gold before Thursday evening’s ceremony by completing a 10 kilometre cross country ski run at Hiawatha in just over 67 minutes.

Special Olympics is the charity of choice for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, with many officers from police services from the Sault and other communities, OPP and RCMP in attendance Thursday.

The games will run Friday and Saturday with Nordic skiing, Alpine skiing, figure skating, speed skating, curling and snowshoeing held at the John Rhodes Community Centre, Community First Curling Centre, Searchmont and Hiawatha with closing ceremonies to be held Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Sault Community Theatre Centre.

A schedule and results may be found on the Games website.