UAA Chief of Police Rick Shell headed to Athens to carry the Flame of Hope for the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games

Rick Shell, Chief of Police for the University of Alaska Anchorage Police Department, will depart on June 6 for Athens, Greece to represent Alaska and aid in the carrying of the Flame of Hope for the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games Athens June 25-July 4.

On June 9, the Flame of Hope will be lit by the sun's rays at the Sacred Site of Pnyx, opposite the Acropolis in Athens, formally launching the Law Enforcement Torch Run® (LETR) Final Leg.  The LETR Final Leg Team consists of an international team of 145 members which includes 101 law enforcement officer runners, 10 Special Olympics athletes, and support personnel who will serve as Guardians of the Flame® as they run the Flame of Hope throughout Greece as well as visiting Istanbul and Cyprus. To symbolize the significant contribution of law enforcement and the inclusion of Special Olympics athletes in this unified Torch Run, the Final Leg Team will conduct extensive runs and ceremonies in all of the Host Town Program communities and in many other towns throughout Greece to heighten awareness of Special Olympics and the World Games.

This is the 13th Special Olympics World Summer Games, uniting 7,000 Special Olympics athletes from 180 nations to compete in 22 Olympic-type sports June 25-July 4. The 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games will be the milestone event of a long-lasting movement, founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, to create a world that is not dominated by those who are excluded but by those who are included. In Athens, the birthplace of modern sport, where the true values of competition were born, the talents and skills of Special Olympics athletes will remind us what the World Games are really about, where all participants are winners in their struggle for respect, inclusion and unity.

For more information on the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games or the Alaska delegates, please call (907) 222-7625 or visit the Special Olympics Alaska website.