Everyone will be a winner at the Integrace III swimming competition

• Louny to host the third annual swimming competition for the mentally disabled
• The T-Mobile Fund made a contribution to this event, which integrates disabled persons into the mainstream

Prague, 8 November 2007 - The annual regional swimming competition in Louny is one of the highlights among sports events organized for mentally disabled children and adults from the Louny region and its surroundings. The third annual swimming competition, called Integrace III, will take place on Monday 12 November and about 50 swimmers have confirmed their participation in this event, according to the organizers.

The competition is being organized by the Society for the Promotion of Mentally Disabled People, the Nautilidae sports club and Louny's Prokop Holý Elementary School, whose swimming pool will be used during the event. "This is the second year that the T-Mobile Fund has contributed to the swimming competition. The organizers approach the swimming activities of mentally disabled people in a very systematic way and they have achieved some success abroad, too," says Martina Kemrová, Senior Head of Corporate Communication at T-Mobile.

Nautilidae club member Radka Suchomelová put her swimmer's experience to good use at the International Olympics of Mentally Disabled Athletes in Shanghai, China, where she won a silver and a bronze medal this year. However, the final standings are not that important during the Louny competition. "The athletes, who always compete with the utmost intensity, have a chance to meet each other and also cooperate and communicate with non-disabled persons. And this is the really important thing," says Olga Bartošová, chairperson of the Society for the Promotion of Mentally Disabled People and the deputy organizer of the Nautilidae club.

The athletes will compete both as individuals and in teams, whose scores are calculated on the basis of their members' results. The disciplines include front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke. The Duo category will involve athletes swimming together with their coaches and a brand-new discipline will be introduced this year: swimming with swim aids. The course of the competition will be managed by ninth-grade students of the school which is co-organizing the event. Some of them will assist the athletes and accompany them around the grounds while others will volunteer as timekeepers and side judges. The best team in the competition will win a challenge trophy and at the end of the competition will also challenge several guests: (the school's director, deputy mayor of Louny and representatives of the sponsoring organizations) to a swimming race. The winners will receive the sponsors' prize.

"The Nautilidae sports club has been in operation for six years. We tried training mentally disabled persons in various sports disciplines and we have found in the end that swimming is the best sport for them. We train with them twice a week for two hours," says Olga Bartošová, adding: "We are happy when we can share our experience and happiness with others, including healthy, non-disabled persons."

This is the third year that various projects have received financial contributions from the T-Mobile Fund. Funding set aside for the Louny region is managed by the Community Foundation of Euroregion Labe, which selected projects from among 119 applications from this region, distributing the total amount of CZK 1.7 million among 32 organizations.

More information: Olga Bartošová, e-mail: bartosaci@ln.cz, phone: 776 682 164

T-Mobile Czech Republic, a member of the international telecommunications group Deutsche Telekom, has almost 6.2 million customers, the number-one operator in the Czech market. T-Mobile is an integrated operator: in addition to telecommunications services, it offers comprehensive ICT solutions not only for companies, but also for other organizations and individuals. It provides outstanding services in the high-speed network, which was proved repeatedly by benchmark testing performed by umlaut (former P3) with Best-in-Test seal.

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