In David Roth’s poem ‘Nine Gold Medals’, when the youngest athlete stumbled and fell to the ground, the other eight who were ahead of him stopped and came back to help him stand up. Then they walked to the finishing line together by holding each other’s hands.

All of them were differently-abled persons. So they all knew how difficult it was to live in such condition and how heartbreaking it was to fall on the ground and lose all hopes of winning after so hard training.

The eight others returned back out of their sense of empathy, cooperation and collaboration, giving a great message to the world that we need cooperation more than competition. It was a display of great human compassion and the spirit of sport. That is why all of them were awarded with nine gold medals. The Special Olympic, that was named so because of the differently-abled contestants, ended with truly being ‘special’ due to the human spirit those athletes showed.