Patna: The Bihar chapter of Special Olympics Bharat and the Samarpan school for special children will accord a rousing welcome to the differently-able youth who have bagged five medals in the Special Olympics National Cycling Championship that concluded in Ranchi on Monday.

Shivajee Kumar, area director of the Bihar chapter of Special Olympics Bharat, said: "Once they come back, a programme for their felicitation will be organised in which their parents will also be invited. These differently-able cyclists have turned hurdles into opportunity," said Shivajee, who is also chairman of Samarpan.

He said the differently-able cyclists were groomed by the Special Olympics Bihar chapter, and educated at Samarpan. "Without both the organisations, they could not have been nurtured and transformed into what they have become today," he said.

The Bihar team will return to the state capital on Tuesday.

"Those who have bagged medals are Syed Shahbaaz Ahmad, who has won gold in the 5km tank trail race and bronze in the 2 km tank trail race, Shishir Kumar (25) who has won silver in the 5km road race and bronze in the 5km time trial race, and Raj Kumar Sharma (25) who has won silver in the 5km time trial race," said Sugandh Nara-yan Prasad, the team coach.

"Shishir, who bagged one silver and one bronze in the championship, was brought to Samarpan at the age of 12 when he didn't even know how to do his own work," Shivajee said.

Shishir won gold medal in the Asia Pacific Games in Australia in 2013.

"He had to take help for wearing clothes, brushing his teeth and every little work. He was very flippant but we diverted his energy into sports and today we can see the result.

"Shahbaaz, who was brought to the school at age 5, was different," Shivajee added. "He is also intellectually disabled like Shishir. He was even integrated in a normal school as per our advice after he learnt how to behave but still he was lagging behind other boys in his class in education. Finally he was again enrolled in Samarpan and we started grooming him in sports seeing his interest. Shahbaaz would always call us after two days asking in which sporting event he was going to participate. He always was a sports enthusiast."

Shahbaaz has high chances of being selected for the upcoming Special Olympics World Summer Games to be held in Abu Dhabi this March.