Glendon West has championed the Special Olympics movement in Jamaica for decades.

Not many would have been as pleased as West after Jamaica sizzled with three gold medals, one silver and a bronze at the recent Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria.

A regular as the country’s head of delegation to the World Winter Games, West, one of the founders of the movement in Jamaica, has been unflinching in his support for people with intellectual disabilities.

He said that his involvement dates back to the 1980s when the country was just finding its way in Special Olympics.

West began as a physical education teacher at Randolph Lopez School of Hope — then School of Hope — in 1981 before taking up an 18-month scholarship in Germany.

“In 1982, I was part of the founding membership of Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) and I’m still deeply involved since that time,” West told the Jamaica Observer.

“To become established we needed to be incorporated as a movement, and we came together with the executive of what was Jamaica Association of Mental Retardation at the time,” he recounted.

Going back to 1996, West has been pastor at the Holiness Apostolic Church in Greater Portmore, St Catherine.

Since 2003 he has held the post of principal of Windsor School of Special Education, which has five branches stretching from St Catherine to Clarendon.

The road has been long and winding. But to this day he appears to relish the quest of balancing his obligations.

“Special Olympics has been my life, apart from my ministry. Being principal, being part of Special Olympics, as well as being with the church sometimes I amaze myself how I’m able to balance all of those,” West, who said he has been to four Winter Games, along with three in the summer, explained.

“But with Special Olympics, once you’re a part it’s very difficult to separate from it, so I continue to be involved,” the veteran school administrator added.

In the fledgling days of Special Olympics Jamaica he was organiser, teacher and athletes’ scout. And even as the local programme has evolved and matured, he proudly extends a guiding hand toward further development.

“As coaches then, we had to go around the island to ensure each parish had a programme. From there the next Games was 1983 and we have been participating in both the Summer and Winter Games.

“Though now I am head of delegation, I play a strategic role in assisting the coaches because of my experience of coaching for such a long time,” he told the Observer.

The Special Olympics International movement focuses on breaking down barriers that exclude people with intellectual disabilities from mainstream society.

It offers year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for people with these disabilities. The disabilities can either be acquired or genetic, and can include cases of Down’s syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, and traumatic brain injury.