As the days wind down to the Special Olympics World Summer Games next month, Jamaica’s coaches and athletes are in fine-tuning mode as they plot to rack up the medal count in the United Arab Emirates.

After a recent training session at National Arena, the Jamaica Observer caught up with roller skating team head coach Tanisha Brown.

“Our preparation has been going well, and the skaters are enthusiastic. We have been practising well and we are looking forward to Abu Dhabi. They are motivated and very excited to participate — they can’t wait because they want to win gold to take back to Jamaica,” she said, adding that the assignment in Abu Dhabi will be her first World Games.

Brown will have an able assistant in Nigel Davis, multiple medal winner in various sporting disciplines and Jamaica’s most decorated Special Olympics athlete.

He has smoothly made the transition into coaching and is eager to lend his experience.

“I have the experience and all those things so I’m helping them to prepare for the World Summer Games next month in Abu Dhabi. I just want to assist them because I know what the competition will be like,” he said.

Jamaica did not enter a roller skating team at the previous World Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2015, but before then had won a number of medals in that discipline.

Sekani Green and Dale Oddman, twin brother of Dave, who starred with a gold-medal effort in speed skating at the Winter Games in Austria two years ago, are the roller skaters to compete in Abu Dhabi.

The bocce team has also lifted its intensity.

Coach Cislyn Shirley said the two players under her watch — Pamella Brown and Delroy Sullivan — have improved and are realistic gold medal prospects.

“The preparation is going well, they are learning and they are pretty much adapting to the rules. Each practice [session] they advance more — this game is an Italian game and a lot of people don’t know much about bocce.

“I’m stepping up the process and looking forward to the Games. I’d like to see the team perform as well or even better [than in Los Angeles], so I’m trying to get them to a certain level,” she told the Observer.

Both Sullivan and Pamella Brown are to be first-time competitors at the World Games, but the latter cheered from the stands as her son Paul Daley helped the unified basketball team to the silver medal in 2015.

Jamaica’s bocce team won gold, silver and bronze in various categories at the last Summer Games.

In bocce, players use an underarm action to bowl a ball at a target. Points are gained by the ball’s proximity to the target.

SOJ is set to send a 98-member delegation to the Games, which will include 73 athletes, 22 coaches, two officials and one medical staff.

The Jamaicans are also set to compete in athletics, swimming, unified badminton, unified basketball, unified football (men’s and women’s teams), and unified volleyball (men’s and women’s teams) at the 2019 Abu Dhabi Games.

They captured 29 medals at the 2015 edition in the United States. They were also a huge hit at respective Winter Games in South Korea in 2013 and in Austria in 2017.

Special Olympics is a global organisation that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition, in a variety of Olympic-type sports, for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.