Chris Munyon, 22, graduated from Jordan High...

Chris Munyon, 22, graduated from Jordan High School in Long Beach, works in the Long Beach shipyards, lives by himself in a small apartment, swims 60 laps twice a week and skis in the winter.

He also is mentally retarded.

On Saturday, he will join about 800 other mentally retarded sports competitors for the Long Beach Special Olympics. The Long Beach branch of the national organization expects to have about 300 entrants, and is the host for teams from a dozen other branches from as far away as Bakersfield and San Diego. Saturday’s competition will be in four sports, although the national organization operates 12 sports.

A generation ago, Munyon and others like him ended up in institutions, said Special Olympics volunteer organizer Betty Nordholm. When Nordholm took her newborn daughter to one of Long Beach’s finest pediatricians 37 years ago, “he literally told me I had a bad baby,” Nordholm said. “They used to say it was your cross to bear, the sins of the father revisited, all those old awful stereotypes.”

No longer, Nordholm said. A network of specialists has evolved in the last 30 years, providing parents with early testing, child development counseling, public school special education classes and social organizations like Special Olympics.

At the Special Olympics this weekend, spectators can watch competitors overcome amazing obstacles, Nordholm said. Children and adults compete in ways not seen among other athletes. Some have difficulty moving, others talking. All have problems thinking. “That makes them work harder,” Nordholm said.

Unlike those to whom winning is paramount, many of the Special Olympiads have other goals. In an earlier swimming competition, Nordholm said, one swimmer waited until her friend caught up so they could finish the race together. “The more you’re around them,” Nordholm explained, “the more you understand.”

The Long Beach Special Olympics is free and open to the public Saturday. The Parade of Athletes begins at 10 a.m. at Millikan High School, 2800 Snowden Ave., Long Beach. Then the swimmers will be bused to the Silverado Park pool at 32nd Street and Santa Fe Avenue in west Long Beach for the aquatic events. Competition in basketball, gymnastics, track and field will kick off at 11 a.m. at Millikan. For information, call 421-2882.