Retired police Sgt. Douglas Maifeld of Rumford, front right, participates June 4 in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Rudersdorf, Germany, as a member of the Law Enforcement Final Leg Team taking the torch to Berlin. The 58-year-old said, “I was worried about it at my age, doing 24 miles in four days. But there was a lot of starting and stopping, too.” Submitted photo

RUMFORD — Expect to see retired police Sgt. Douglas Maifeld showing off a torch he carried this summer during the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin, Germany as a member of the Law Enforcement Final Leg Team.

The honor came 35 years after the Rumford resident participated in the Maine Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run in 1988 when Rumford Police Chief Dewey Robinson told him to “‘go see what this torch run thing is,'” Maifeld said.

“I was kind of like Forrest Gump,” he said. “I started running and I haven’t stopped. I just got hooked from the first day.”

The Special Olympics World Games serve as a catalyst to challenge perceptions about people with intellectual disabilities, and all people with differences, and demonstrate to the world the power of sport to establish thriving, inclusive communities by transforming attitudes and behaviors.

The Law Enforcement Torch Run raises money for Special Olympics.

A former participant in the U.S. Special Olympics Summer Games, this year Maifeld was given the opportunity to go to the World Summer Games in Germany where he lived for three years while his father was serving in the U.S. military.

“I’d never been to Berlin before because when we went to Germany, we couldn’t go to Berlin,” the 58-year-old veteran police officer said. “The wall was still up at that time.”

Maifeld said he also went to Germany as a way to honor his late wife, Mary.

“I lost her in January,” he said, “There were so many times that I took a picture and I said, ‘I’ve got to send it to her. She’ll think this is cool.’ So I posted it on Facebook for my kids to see.”

The Law Enforcement Final Leg Team was comprised of 120 members from 46 states and 25 countries, including 95 law enforcement officers. The majority of officers were chosen for their years of experience with Special Olympics, he said.

Maifeld got to carry the torch on the last leg of the run from Rudersdorf to Berlin, where the games were held June 17-25.

“I was worried about it at my age, doing 24 miles in four days,” he said. “But there was a lot of starting and stopping, too. We all ran as one group but divided into four different groups that carried the torch through four towns each day.”

“Some of these host towns we ran through had hundreds of people lining the streets cheering us on,” he said. “That was the big thing, just bringing the awareness to everybody because Germany doesn’t have their own law enforcement torch run.”

One of the more memorable experiences, he said, was seeing the parade of athletes at the opening ceremonies.

“When we got there, we were all in full uniform, and some of us got to high-five some of the athletes and the delegation as they came through. I got to meet Tim Shriver (Special Olympics chairman of the Special Olympics International board of directors). I said, ‘Thank you so much for taking a selfie with me,’ and he goes, ‘No, thank you for what you do for Special Olympics.’ That made me feel great.”

He also added Facebook friends as a result of meeting members of the final leg team.

“These people are my family now,” Maifeld said. “I’ve probably got three quarters of them as friends on Facebook from that interaction. Of course, we did patch swaps and coin swaps amongst ourselves.”

Retired police Sgt. Douglas Maifeld of Rumford takes a selfie June 17 with Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics International board of directors, at the World Summer Games in Berlin, Germany. Submitted photo

He set at goal of raising $3,000 for the games, which would qualify him to get a Special Olympics World Games torch. He ended up raising almost $4,100.

“I’ll use the torch to show it off around town and if I have speaking engagements, and I’ll show it to the kids at school,” the resource officer for Regional School Unit 10 said.

He was hired for the job after retiring from the Police Department in 2020.

Speaking of his time volunteering for Special Olympics, Maifeld said, “I’ve gotten so much out of them by doing what I do for Special Olympics, like going to a conference in Phoenix and getting to run a final leg through Phoenix, which was also where I was born.”

He said he welcomes invitations from local organizations to speak about his experiences at the world games.

“That would add to bringing awareness to Special Olympics to people. And that’s the most important part to the whole thing.”