With the only 100 days away to the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games, Shanghai, China's biggest economy core, is gearing itself up to welcome a special group of athletes from worldwide.

A special-designed restroom for special athletes of Shanghai Stadium, the main venue of the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games and the venue for one of the first round football game of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is seen in this photo taken in June 25, 2007. [chinadaily.com.cn]

"We will make all of the venue facilities easy for special athletes to use and stage safe and friendly Games," Li Weiting, deputy director of Shanghai Sports Bureau told journalists from major news medias visiting Shanghai to cover the Games preparation work.

According to Li, more than 10,000 special athletes and coaches from 160 countries will be in Shanghai this October for the Games lasting from October 2 to 11.

"We have much more work to do for a special Games than that for other Games as these athletes have difficulties to finish their events because of either lack of intelligence or ability," Li said.

Li went on to explain that some of the special athletes don't understand starting gun and others may run to the opposite direction. "So all of the referees we will have are specially trained ones, they know how to deal with this kind of occasions to guarantee the athletes finish their events."

The deputy director said there will be group events like basketball, football that will stage both special athletes and normal athletes. "We will have normal athletes to help special athletes to finish the group events, but normal athletes are not allowed to process the ball very long," Li said.

Also, the awarding stages are specially designed to make it easy for special athletes and those on wheelchair to climb. "We will have other special service in the venue like food supply and special lobbies."

"We will encourage people to watch and cheer for the special athletes as they need cheer and encouragement," Li said, adding they will launch a public campaign to ask people participate into the Games.