NYU Abu Dhabi will no longer be a sports venue for the 2019 Special Olympics. The games are scheduled to take place in March 2019, as was previously reported by The Gazelle. NYUAD will still be hosting the Global Youth Summit concurrently with the Special Olympics. The Special Olympics World Games organizers intend to bring one team from each country to compete in the games. Currently there are 177 countries expected to compete at the Special Olympics with a total of 7,000 athletes.

NYUAD was a sports venue for the Special Olympics IX MENA Games in 2018 where it hosted the track and field and swimming events. The 2018 games were smaller in scale than the 2019 Special Olympics with a total of approximately 1,000 participants.

Given the substantially larger scale of the 2019 Special Olympics, NYUAD does not have the facilities to host the event. In addition to the 7,000 athletes and 2,500 coaches, the 2019 games are expected to draw a total of 500,000 spectators. NYUAD’s outdoor stadium can only hold 1,500 people at a time. Facilities in Dubai are better equipped to host what is expected to be the largest humanitarian event in history. While the Abu Dhabi government remains the official host of the 2019 Special Olympics, many of the sports competitions — including track and field and swimming — will be moved to Dubai.

In place of the Special Olympics track and field and swimming events, NYUAD will be hosting the Global Youth Summit. Youth had been broadly defined as the summit open to people ages 18 to 40. Each country will send two representatives with one of the team members being a person of determination, defined as people with special needs. This year’s summit will consist of a series of workshops and talks by experts in policy concerning the rights of people of determination. Their mission is to combat the stigmatization of people of determination and raise awareness for athletic events outside of the annual Special Olympics. Each team will also work on policies that aim to support people of determination in their own countries.