TEAM IRELAND WEEK: So many moments where victory and participation were on a par - almost, writes Joe Humphreys
Snapshots from family albums: David McCauley lighting the Flame of Hope. "A big moment for us all," according to John Daly, kayaking coach.
Hugs and kisses from Lucan to Kilcock. "Of everything, I think the host town experience will be the highlight of the Games," says equestrian coach Donnie Carroll.
Swimmer Damien O'Donovan, fighting to the death at Abbotstown. "Gold tomorrow," he predicted the night before, and he was right.
Josie Lambert's softball win at the age of 65. "I knew I could do it," she declared from the top of the winners' podium.
The basketball team dancing in celebration despite defeat. Gymnast William Loughnane's smile to the crowd after landing a mark of 9.6 in the vault event.
Rapturous applause for Gary Durcan as he completed the bean bag lift.
So many moments in such a short space of time. "It will be a big downer next week. I don't want it to stop," says athletics coach Phyllis Gilliland.
One of the team's archetypal energetic, jocular volunteers - "You'll recognise me," she says, "I'm the tall, skinny drink of water" - she could be found this week jogging around Morton Stadium between events with her squad, stopping off to mingle with the crowd. "This is all part of the Games. It's about raising awareness," she remarks as a gang of schoolkids gather around.
"These kids probably think disability means 'can't walk, can't talk'. To meet the athletes, and know they have ability, helps to change that."
It certainly does, judging by the reaction of the girls of St Brigid's, Glasnevin, who are on a day-trip to the track. "They're cool," says Jessica Smyth as she displays her collection of autographs from the team. "Look, they signed my flag," classmate Deirdre O'Brien interjects.
A PE lecturer from Co Antrim who is 15 years with Special Olympics, Gilliland is representative of something that is core to the Team Ireland family.
She is enthusiastic, committed and humble, forever projecting praise onto her charges, each one of whom she regards as an equal. There's Fergal O'Regan, a late-comer to the squad who "worked his socks off" for a 400m bronze; Moira Moran "a really talented girl"; and Geraldine O'Regan who was "very quiet" to start off with but "now keeps the young people going". "Every one of them is now making conversations," Gilliland notes. "For these people, a conversation is a big thing."
One can see it everywhere - in the casual manner of Fergal O'Regan as he chats, one minute to passers-by, the next to his family who have travelled up from Carrigrohane in Cork to see him.
Asked whether he is feeling homesick, he mulls it over for a while before admitting, "a small bit".
"It's another aspect, being away with the team for two weeks," says Gilliland. "A lot of them have never been away before, let alone for so long."
Then there's the physical benefit. Special Olympics breaks the link between disability and sedentary patterns associated with heart and liver disease. "The athletes are so much more healthy. They're looking better, they're eating better. When they're hungry, they don't want a fizzy drink or junk food but look for a banana instead." When one talks about the legacy of the Games, this will be part of it. A new energy and health within the family. New confidence and new friends made.
But Team Ireland hopes it doesn't end there.
"What's beautiful about this week is you have a complete role-reversal of what normally happens," says head of delegation Vivien Buckley. "All those athletes signing autographs are appreciated for their ability instead of pitied with a 'God help them' attitude. Wouldn't it be great if it was like that all the time?" She knows Special Olympics has played the charity card before, and will do so again. "It's really difficult to get funding at the moment because of cutbacks," she explains. But she hopes donations will now be made in a different spirit.
"We need money. We need financial support all of the time. But we hope people will give in the future because they know it does so much good - it makes a difference. We've seen that this week." Her aversion to the 'God help them' attitude, the belief that people with a learning disability should be pitied rather than celebrated, comes from personal experience.
Her son Kieran was born with such a disability and had literally "nothing to do" until he found the Special Olympics 10 years ago. Vivien Buckley says: "I was lucky because I was involved in teaching and I could go against the grain. If I had listened to the professionals, he would not be where he is now. He'd be in a sheltered workshop, isolated full-time."
Instead Kieran, now aged 20, works "on the sites" with Cork County Council's housing section. He had a job in a supermarket before that but "thought it was a bit namby-pamby loading old ladies' shopping baskets". One of his friends is Kevin O'Connor, a member of the equestrian squad, with whom he attends a mixed-ability theatre group at the Cope Foundation, Mallow. "Some days I'd be coming home and see his bike outside the pub, and he'd be inside having a pint of Coke and a game of pool," his mother recalls fondly.
He is, in other words, integrated in society. Indeed, he could be found this week working in an official capacity at the Kill Equestrian Centre. "I called down to see him and he said, 'I can't talk to you now. I'm too busy.'" Buckley smiles at the thought.
For many in Team Ireland, and the broader Special Olympics family, Kieran is the future, and that future seems more of a possibility than it did before. Especially now the family has got bigger, better, stronger.
"Ireland has had a real lesson in disability awareness this week," says Vivien Buckley. "There is more understanding of people with disabilities, but also more enjoyment of what they can do."