Daily Archives: June 7, 2022

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) The 2026 Special Olympics USA Games will be held at the University of Minnesota, officials announced Friday.

Gov. Tim Walz said he is incredibly proud to have Minnesota host the seven-day event, which is expected to draw as many as 4,000 athletes, 10,000 volunteers, 1,500 coaches and 75,000 fans from all 50 states, Canada and the Caribbean.

Every four years, Special Olympics hosts the USA Games and in 2026, this will be the single biggest sporting event in the United States during that year, Walz said at a news conference.

The games for children and adults with intellectual disabilities will include 15 Olympic-type team and individual sports and five demonstration sports. Competitions will be held at the university and other Twin Cities venues.

The university will offer its housing, athletic, dining and medical facilities for the athletes, coaches, families and fans, said university President Joan Gabel, the honorary co-chair of the games.

The Special Olympics have, historically, generated more than $70 million of economic impact for the host city, according to Special Olympics Minnesota.

More importantly, it will showcase these incredible athletes, the work they do and the idea of inclusiveness in our society, Walz said. Minnesota has always prided ourselves on our health and wellness by making sure that includes everyone.

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University of Minnesota to host 2026 Special Olympics USA

Editors note: For those who would like to follow the progress of the athletes competing in Orlando, Florida, please check in with our updates page here.

Caroline Colianne, 41, remembered well the time before she blossomed into a multi-talented Special Olympian about to compete at her second Olympic games.

The Special Olympics actually changed my life, she said. When I first started I was very shy. It helped me to be a better person and more outgoing. It definitely helped my confidence. I didnt have a whole lot of confidence before I started.

This was the gift the founders hoped to give the athletes 54 years ago when the first Special Olympics Summer Games were first held July 20, 1968 at Soldier Field, Chicago. The venture, funded by the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation and the Chicago Park District, was a pet project of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who knew about intellectual disabilities first hand from the struggles of her older sister, Rosemary.

Shriver via the Special Olympics took intellectual disabilities into the public arena and championed the athletes and their families, helping to change societal stigmas with the mission to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

Colianne is now at the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games, being held through June 12, 2022 in Orlando, Florida. She is one of five Evanston athletes at the national competition: Colianne, Riley Hoffman, 27, Grayson Deeney, 23, Alex Anderson, 30 and Kirk Nelson, 44. The five along with coach Leonard Woodson sat down for a conversation with the RoundTable at the Robert Crown Community Center.

Woodson said when Colianne first started competing, she was so nervous she would throw up before competitions. This is not unusual for athletes, but, without knowing it, it would be hard to suspect the multi-sport winning, outgoing and poised young woman had pre-competition jitters.

Yet, when Colianne competed in 2014 in four aquatics events, she medalled in each: two golds in the 50-meter medley relay and 100-meter backstroke; a silver in the 100-meter freestyle, and a bronze in the 100-meter individual relay.

She has since switched to track and field and will be competing in the shot put, the 1,500-meter and the 800-meter races. But she also plays basketball and volleyball, works as a teachers assistant at the McGaw YMCA Childrens Center and also teaches swimming lessons at the YMCA pool.

Hoffman and Deeney and Anderson will be competing on the flag football team, Hoffman and Deeney play receiver or running back, according to the teams needs. Anderson is the quarterback. All three have played seriously for the past three years. When they are not practicing, or playing volleyball or basketball, Hoffman works at Lincolnwood Mall, Deeney works at Fro Gelato and Anderson works at Lowes.

Nelson, who has been weight lifting for four years, will compete in powerlifting, doing three different lifts: squat lift, bench lift and deadlift.

The Olympics changed my life as well, Nelson said. It made me a better person When I was in high school, I got hit by a car. All of my friends and coaches are amazed that I can participate in all of these sports.

Hoffman agreed: Oh man, Id be a lot different. Since I was like 3-years-old, I always wanted to participate in the Special Olympics. I never knew it was gonna really come true. For a couple of years, I had a lot of obstacles. My mom died of cancer. My brother passed away in 2019. Its kind of like I had lots of ups and downs like behavior issues and stuff. And to come this far and to do something special, this means a lot to me.

Anderson also said the Olympics changed him: When I was in high school, I [was] getting into trouble with law enforcement and not coming home. Being in and out of hospitals, he said. One of my friends introduced me to the Special Olympics to interact with people who understand who I am.

I have come so far in my life. And I love hanging out with these guys, talking to them and making jokes.

This is Woodsons third USA Special Olympics. He coached individual bocce and this year track and field. He works for Evanstons Parks and Recreations Special Recreation division.

The five Evanston athletes are part of the 16-member Illinois team. All will be in Florida with four coaches, a medic and two delegation heads, who work for Special Olympics Illinois, Carolyn Klocek Cronin and Brianna Beers. The competitions will be in the Olympic bubble used by the NBA in 2020 and televised live on ESPN.

Woodson said he has watched these young people develop and go beyond what they and others ever thought possible.

He said: My philosophy has always been I dont look at their disability. I take that into account in terms of what theyre able to do or not able to do. But I push them up to that limit and try to get them to break that wall a little bit to see that they can actually do a little bit more.

Ive had pretty much every one of these guys in here tell me that theyve had folks when they were younger at some point making fun of them or excluding them. And now theyre doing stuff that the people who made fun of them arent even doing.

The RoundTable will follow up with the group while they compete and post occasional updates. We will also check in after they return. Here are links to the competition schedule and to ESPNs Special Olympics coverage.

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Five Evanstonian athletes at 2022 Special Olympics USA Games - Evanston RoundTable

Of the several Minor League signings the Los Angeles Dodgers completed during the offseason and Spring Training, arguably none came with a more unique story than Eddy Alvarez, an Olympic medalist.

Alvarez made his MLB debut with the Miami Marlins last year and appeared in 24 games for the club. He was outrighted off their 40-man roster in October and became a free agent.

That led to Alvarez signing with the Dodgers and impressing during Spring Training. He continued to fare well in Triple-A Oklahoma City and received a call-up this past weekend as the corresponding roster move to Edwin Ros being placed on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain.

Alvarez made a pinch-hit appearance on Saturday and started at third base in the series finale against the New York Mets. He delivered a game-tying RBI single with two outs in the ninth inning.

They were kind of beating me with fastballs all day, so I knew I wanted to be aggressive first pitch because they were throwing a lot of first-pitch strikes to me, Alvarez said of his clutch hit.

So I just put a good enough swing on it, got it by and, you know, gave our team the best chance. Its incredible. Im going to cherish this forever. Just to crack this roster and to be a little piece of the algorithm is incredible. So Im going to count my blessings and Im going to do what I can.

Alvarez had his wife, son, parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece in attendance for his first start with the Dodgers. They, along with droves of Dodgers fans, went into a frenzy when Alvarez tied the game.

You know, every game feels like its the Olympics here, answered Alvarez when asked how being with the Dodgers compares to the Olympics. We had 30,000 fans screaming in a nice arena. When you put 60-70,000 out in the stands here, it kind of feels like the same energy.

Plus, just the atmosphere and the love that the city has for this team, its incredible to play in front of.

Trea Turner and Alvarez had previously crossed paths during their respective time in the National League East, and the utilityman has certainly made an impression on the All-Star shortstop.

Spring training, I was definitely really impressed by him, Turner said. He played really well in Spring Training, and then you look at the scoreboard and they had his numbers from Triple-A right up there, hes hitting really good.

And then he comes up here and does the same thing, plays good defense, gets some knocks and just puts good at-bats together.

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Eddy Alvarez: Every Game Feels Like Its The Olympics When Playing For Dodgers - DodgerBlue.com

Eden Prairie, Minnesota, June 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Starkey is thrilled to serve as the exclusive global supplier of hearing instruments for the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Healthy Hearing program at the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games. The games, which began June 5 and run through June 12, are being held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida, and unite more than 5,500 athletes and coaches from all 50 states and the Caribbean. Starkeys participation is a continuation of the global partnership made with Special Olympics International earlier this year, which pledged to increase access to hearing health services worldwide for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Starkey was founded on the principle of helping others, said Starkey Owner and Chairman, Bill Austin. Through our Starkey Cares program, were proud to be a part of the Inclusion Revolution and support Special Olympics athletes with the hearing health resources they need to connect to their world. Alone we can't do much. Together, we can change the world!

In partnership with Special Olympics International, Starkey Cares is providing life-changing health services and hearing instruments to Special Olympics athletes around the world and helping train healthcare professionals to make healthy hearing more inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities. At the 2022 USA Games, Starkey is providing comprehensive hearing screenings, follow-up recommendations, and education on the importance of regular hearing screenings for athletes participating in the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Healthy Hearing program.

Special Olympics Healthy Hearing is one of eight disciplines within theSpecial Olympics Healthy Athletes program, which provides health services and information to millions of people in need in more than 130 countries.Through both the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles (USA) and the 2019 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), Starkey and Special Olympics have delivered over 2,700 hearing screenings to athletes and nearly 500 personally fitted hearing instruments to date.

Around the world, too many children and adults with intellectual disabilities arent able to get hearing testing or other routine screenings, said Dr. Alicia Bazzano, Chief of Health, Special Olympics International. In fact, during our testing, nearly a quarter of our athletes fail their hearing test, which indicates possible hearing loss. Moreover, many of our athletes who are screened have problems getting the follow-up care they so urgently need. Starkey Cares will help us level the playing field for people with intellectual disabilities to improve their hearing health, get them the hearing aids and care they need, and give our athletes more opportunities to be included and contribute to their communities.

About Starkey

Starkey is a privately held, global hearing technology company headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Owned by Bill Austin since 1967, Starkey is known for its innovative design, development, and distribution of comprehensive digital hearing systems. Led today by President and CEO Brandon Sawalich, Starkey has more than 5,000 employees, operates 29 facilities and does business in more than 100 markets worldwide. Learn more at starkey.com.

About Special Olympics International

Founded in 1968, Special Olympics is a global movement to end discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities. We foster acceptance of all people through the power of sport and programming in education, healthand leadership. With more than six million athletes andSpecial OlympicsUnified Sports partners in over190 countries and territoriesand more than one million coaches and volunteers, Special Olympics deliversmore than 30 Olympic-type sportsand over100,000Games and competitionsevery year.

Engage with us on:Twitter,Facebook,YouTube,Instagram,LinkedInandour blog on Medium. Learn more atwww.SpecialOlympics.org.

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Starkey Serves as Exclusive Hearing Health Partner for the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games - GlobeNewswire

U.S.A. bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor.Adam Pretty/Getty Images

The Winter Olympics are held every four years in February. That's Black History Month in the United States. But this year, likely less than 5 percent of the 224-member United States delegation to the Beijing Games is Black.

Three Black Americans are women on the bobsled team, including Elana Meyers Taylor, who, in her fourth straight Olympics, piloted the two-woman sled to a bronze medal Saturday, behind two German sleds. Meyers Taylor also won silver last week in the new monobob event. There is one male bobsledder, Hakeem Abdul-Saboor. Others compete in skeleton (Kelly Curtis) and speedskating (Erin Jackson and Maame Biney). There are no Black Alpine skiers, snowboarders, or freestyle skiers on Team USA.

Although Team USA boasts Asian American stars like Chloe Kim and Nathan Chen, both gold medalists, Asian American athletes comprised less than 10 percent of the 2018 Olympic team and the representation is likely similar in Beijing, although four out of the six American figure skaters, including Chen, in individual events are of Chinese descent.

Abby Roque is the first Indigenous woman on the U.S. women's hockey team but is also its only player of color in Beijing.

There is a distinct dearth of diversity in the Winter Olympics overall, too. At the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, just 43 of 2,952 athletes, or 1.45 percent, were Black. In Beijing, the number is likely to be even fewer because of a decision by the International Olympic Committee to end a continental quota system for the sliding sports (bobsledding, skeleton, and luge) that had helped African athletes, most of them Black, reach the Games. Only six African athletes from five countries will compete in Beijing, all of them Alpine or cross-country skiers and most of whom live and/or train in Europe. No African athlete has ever medaled in the Winter Olympics.

While many Asian nations are represented among the 2,871 athletes from 91 countries competing in Beijing, only China, with 174 athletes, Japan, with 124, and South Korea, with 64, have sizable delegations. Several Asian countries only send one or two athletes to the Winter Games, including India, Pakistan and Malaysia.

Besides Roque, just four other Indigenous athletes are known to be competing in Beijing: Two on Canada's women's hockey team, one Canadian snowboarder and a Danish athlete from Greenland in the biathlon.

How to increase the participation of athletes of color in winter sports is a complicated question with many small solutions that could, over time, add up to broader representation, domestically and globally, at the Olympics.

To aid increasing diversity on a global scale, the IOC acknowledging the importance of equity in increasing diversity in winter sports would be a huge boon for domestic federations as they seek to do the same.

The IOC should reinstate continental quotas for all sports. Quotas do not dilute the playing field; rather, they even it by providing athletes with the financial support they need to travel and train. For Black athletes coming from an African or a Caribbean country with few resources and no snow or ice, that support can be invaluable, as Akwasi Frimpong of Ghana told Sports Illustrated's Alex Prewitt.Frimpong, who competed in Pyeongchang, was the first Black male skeleton athlete at the Olympics and singlehandedly runs Ghana's bobsled and skeleton federation. "It's not that we're less talented," Frimpong told Prewitt. "We don't have the dedicated infrastructure. We don't have the knowledge. It takes support."

Winter sports, generally speaking, tend to be restrictive in a few ways. Most winter sports require specialized equipment. Unlike running shoes or basketballs, things like ice skates and skating costumes, skis and snowboards and sleds for sliding sports are not particularly accessible. And winter sports can be prohibitively expensive beyond the equipment costs, when you factor in things like lift tickets at ski areas, ice time at a rink or specialized coaching. Ice hockey costs the average family $2,600 a year; skiing and snowboarding, about $2,200 a year. A monobob on its own costs about $45,000. Figure skaters at the elite level can spend$50,000 a year or more in the U.S.

The speedskater Erin Jackson, who won a gold medal in the 500-meter long-track event, became the first Black female gold medalist in her sport. In her post-race interview, Jackson said she hoped to be a trailblazer for other Black athletes. "Hopefully, this has an effect. Hopefully, we'll see more minorities, especially in the USA, getting out and trying these winter sports," said Jackson. Jackson has consulted with EDGE Outdoors, a Seattle-based nonprofit "created to address the invisibility of Black, Indigenous, Women of Color in snow sports," according to its mission statement, about starting a chapter in Utah, where she lives and trains.

Access and representation for athletes of color in winter sports go hand in hand. Organizations like EDGE Outdoors or Winter4Kids, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that introduces children in the metro New York area to Alpine and Nordic skiing and snowboarding, can increase accessibility. EDGE provides scholarships for training and coaching. Winter4Kids provides transportation, coaching and equipment.

But just putting athletes of color on ski slopes and on skates does not mean they will be accepted.

Meyers Taylor wrote in a blog titled "Even Olympic Medals Can't Save You From" for TeamUSA.org that she would not buy one of the fastest bobsleds on the market because the manufacturer refuses to sell to Black pilots and has used a racial slur to describe them. "I'd give up a gold medal before driving a sled made by him," she wrote, but added that Team USA owns one of his sleds.

Making athletes of color feel accepted in winter sports so that they continue to develop in them and become competitive at the elite level is a work in progress for many winter sports.

The National Brotherhood of Skiers (NBS) works to "identify, develop, and support athletes of color" in winter sports through its member ski clubs. And while it aims to propel athletes to success at the Olympic level, its CEO, Henri Rivers, told the AP's Aaron Morrison that he wants the greater ski community to "embrace [skiers of color] and see them as the future of the sport" first.

The national federations of many winter sports in the U.S. have publicly recognized their lack of diversity and committed to attracting more athletes of color to them.

Membership in U.S. Skiing is more than 99 percent white, according to a recent DEI audit of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team. None of its coaches nor anyone on its board of directors was a person of color. Tiger Shaw, the president and CEO of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, said in a 2020 open letter to the organization that he hoped to "better engage and with and support" athletes of color.

Anne Cammett, the president of U.S. Figure Skating, where Black members comprise just 2 percent of the organization, wrote in a similar letter in 2020 that the group had "embarked on an ongoing journey to make the organization more welcoming, specifically to Black and Brown people." USA Hockey's website reports a "commitment to listen, learn and unite in an effort to make the sport more welcoming to all." Just 7 percent of USA Hockey's membership is comprised of people of color, and no one on its board is a person of color.

It's a start, but actions need to back up words. If winter sports do not become more inclusive, fewer Black athletes will stay in them, and the lack of representation will negate attempts to make them accessible in the first place.

One step winter sports could make toward greater inclusivity is to diversify recruiting. Many Black athletes in winter sports have made the switch from other sports.

Jackson, for example, came to speedskating via inline skating. She learned to skate, alongside other future Team USA athletes, at a roller rink in Ocala, Florida. She was a world champion in inline skating but wanted to pursue an Olympic medal.

Skateboarding skills can translate to snowboarding skills. Zeb Powell, an X Games gold medalist, got his start on a skateboard in North Carolina before moving to Vermont to train in snowboarding. Though he is unlikely to train for an Olympic discipline on snow, his success in the sport could and should spur scouts to check skate parksoften more accessible to more kids from a broader range of backgroundsas well as the slopes.

Many bobsledders (and other sledding athletes) come over from track and field, according to a New York Times article. Their strength, speed and agility translate well from running tracks to ice tracks. Vonetta Flowers, the first Black athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Games, was one of them. Flowers had tried and failed to make an Olympic team as a long jumper before making the switch. Kaysha Love, a bobsledder in Beijing, was a former track star, as was Abdul-Saboor, who also played football. Sylvia Hoffman played basketball. Kelly Curtis, the first Black American woman to compete in skeleton, was a heptathlete in college.

Meyers Taylor, now a five-time bobsled medalist with at least one medal in each of her four Olympic appearances, played softball, first at George Washington University, then professionally for a year. After she did not make the Olympic softball team, and inspired by Flowers' success, she made the switch to bobsled.

"Learning how to captain a [softball] team and then needing to do it from a bobsled perspective as a pilot, that definitely helped me in and of itself," Meyers told Bob Reinert for TeamUSA.org.

Meyers Taylor said that although she had trained for softball as an endurance athlete, the current methods softball players use to train would help their bobsled careers, should they choose to switch. "Bobsled's all short sprints, really heavy lifting and fortunately, those were my strengths," she told Reinert.

USA Bobsled & Skeleton announced last year that the federation was partnering with a platform that would allow athletes to try out for sled sports "from the convenience of a local football field, running track, or even their backyard."

Diversity, equity and inclusion became buzzwords in sports and in corporate America following the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020, for good reason. But for winter sports to truly become diverse, equitable and inclusive, concrete changes need to be made. And they need to come from the national and international levels, which cannot leave the work of diversifying solely to the athletes.

Changes like defraying the costs of transportation and equipment and diversifying recruitment and seeking competent athletes in other sports. Also providing financial support for travel and training from the highest international and national levels of the sport to athletes who would not even be able to try the sports to which they aspire. Without measures like these, athletes of color will continue to see fewer representations of what they could be on the Winter Olympics stage.

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How the Winter Olympics Can Become More Diverse and Equitable - Bleacher Report