RUMFORD – Her snowshoes and gray gloves were too big, but 14-year-old Brittany Waterhouse stood tall among “giants” at Tuesday’s Special Olympics of Maine Oxford and Kennebec counties event at Black Mountain ski area.
Eager to prove her mettle, the 41-inch-tall Waterhouse waited to race in her pink and purple snowsuit at the 25-meter start line.
Likewise, 10-year-old Chelsea Warner of Harrison also stood out in her pink jacket and toothy grin, but not because she was the only athlete representing her team, Harrison Elementary School.
Warner couldn’t hear the laughter generated by 89 other athletes – ages 9 to 77 – or the encouragement from coaches, volunteers and family members. When she was 3, Chuck and Athena Warner learned their daughter is deaf.
“Even hearing aids don’t work for her, because she has no hearing at all,” Athena Warner said, waiting at the finish line with one shot left in the package inside her Polaroid camera.
Waterhouse’s mom, Lisa Christman of West Paris, also waited near the finish line, a video recorder clutched tightly in her palm.
Her daughter was born with achondroplasia, or dwarfism, she said.
According to Little People of America, achondroplasia is a genetic condition that results in disproportionately short arms and legs.
Like Chelsea Warner, Brittany, a seventh-grader at Oxford Hills Middle School in South Paris, is competing in 25-meter and 50-meter snowshoe racing.
Each Special Olympian suffers from some kind of mental or physical handicap.
Those conditions, however, took a back seat to the heart, spirit and courage they brought to Black Mountain on a perfect sunny day under a blue sky adorned with puffy cumulus clouds.
The Special Olympics of Maine Winter Games are held each January at Sugarloaf Mountain in Carrabassett Valley. But, due to a lack of lodging, athletes from Oxford and Kennebec counties were excluded from participating in January. That prompted this week’s two days of games in Rumford especially for them.
Tuesday was time-trials day, which meant athletes big and small, slow and fast, raced in waves in both Nordic and snowshoe events. Alpine skiers were to compete later in the day.
Their times and ages would then be fed into a computer to generate heat sheets for the finals competition from 9 to 11 a.m. today in snowshoe racing and the Alpine and Nordic events.
“Equal age groups and equal times compete, so everyone has a chance to go for the gold,” said Mark Capano, Special Olympics of Maine training and area development director, said Tuesday afternoon.
“This is not solely about medals. It’s about competing to the best of one’s ability, and we’re just as proud of them,” he added.
Warner finished second in her run. Waterhouse was in the next wave. She couldn’t run as fast, but she sprinted, her short arms swinging from side to side, with her long ponytail dancing and bobbing behind her.
Head back, mouth open, she ran as fast as she could, fell, got up smiling, and continued, while Mom watched.
“I was so happy, I was crying. I couldn’t even tape it. To see her compete and having fun, she wasn’t supposed to live past 3 days old, and she proved Boston wrong,” Christman said of the New England Medical Center doctors and their diagnosis.
Earlier Tuesday, opening ceremonies began with the athletes and their entourages parading behind the Oxford County Sheriff’s color guard.
It culminated in the lighting of a large, columnar Special Olympics torch by 77-year-old Lloyd Rodney Stain, and Eric Rood, 27, both of Augusta and team Employment Specialist of Maine.
Cheers of “Yea, Rodney!” mingled with applause as he carried the torch to Rood on the stepladder.
“We’ve never had the honor of doing the torch, so we’re very proud of that,” Employment Specialist of Maine President Jean Gallant said.
Other teams competing include Team Sunshine of Rumford, Mosher Independent of Upton, Fryeburg Academy, Medical Care Development and Rowe Elementary School of Norway, Momentum of Oxford, Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School of Paris and SAD 11 Gardiner.
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