Special Olympics USA Games are headed to Orlando
Six weeks from now, more than 100,000 athletes, coaches and fans will converge on Central Florida for what will be the largest Special Olympics USA Games in the 54-year history of the competition.
Along with exposure for the region, organizers expect the weeklong event to have a $60 million economic impact.
“We are absolutely thrilled and honored,” said Joe Dzaluk, the USA Games’ president and CEO. “This is the first time that the games are being held here in Florida, even though we’ve got one of the largest Special Olympics organizations in the nation in our state. We’ve just never had the opportunity before, but we know that, for the athletes and some of those watching, this will be life-changing.”
Walt Disney World Resort is hosting the June 5-12 games for athletes with intellectual disabilities and offering its 220-acre ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex as one of the main venues for competition.
But other events will be held beyond the theme park — including the opening ceremonies at Orlando’s Exploria Stadium, tennis at Lake Nona’s USTA National Campus, equestrian competition at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, swimming at the Rosen Aquatic and Fitness Center off International Drive and triathlon at Lake Minneola’s Waterfront Park in Clermont.
With planning in the final stages, organizers have recruited about 8,000 volunteers — but still need 4,000 more. They’ll do everything from greeting families at Orlando International Airport to serving lunches to keeping score and presenting medals.
“We don’t assign shifts because we want people to choose what works for them and do what’s important to them,” said Sara Hurst, a volunteer herself, who will be helping to manage the volunteers. “We want their volunteer experience to be a fantastic one.”
Hurst, a 52-year-old executive secretary at Walt Disney World, is so passionate about the cause that she’s taking a week of her annual vacation time to pitch in.
“I’m a sports fan at heart,” she said. “I love competition, although I’m not necessarily athletic myself, but I enjoy watching these athletes. They may not win first place, but the fact that they get out there and they try with their whole heart, and they leave it all out there on the field, it just makes you happy to witness.”
Volunteers have to be at least 15 years old by June 5, and those under 18 must have a parent or legal guardian complete their registration and hand-sign their waivers. (For more information and to register, go to 2022 special olympics us a games. org .)
Orlando was selected to host the event after previous quadrennial USA Games were held in Seattle, New Jersey, Nebraska and Iowa. The Special Olympics first international games were held in Chicago in 1968 after Eunice Kennedy Shriver launched a summer camp for young people with intellectual disabilities at her home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
At the time, it was a monumental shift in attitude. To that point, parents whose children had intellectual impairments were encouraged to institutionalize them, and the children were often kept secret or secluded at home. Many authorities of the era assumed such children had no capacity to learn or develop skills.
Dzaluk, a former chief financial officer for AA Metals and top executive for IBM, said the Special Olympics movement continues to knock down barriers. These games, for instance, will be 50% bigger than the 2018
games in Seattle, and they’ll be introducing
four additional sports: equestrian, open-water swimming, competitive cheerleading and surfing.
The latter will be held at one of the nation’s largest wave pools at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon.
Sherry Wheelock, president and CEO of Special Olympics Florida, said she expects the event to be “awe-inspiring.”
“The USA Games will provide a huge stage for our athletes to shine and will be a tremendous economic driver for the region,” she said. “We are absolutely certain the games will be an unforgettable experience for everyone.”
The games also will serve as a major health initiative for the athletes.
“Our community does not get the properhealthcarefocusitshould,” Dzaluk said. “So the week of June 5, we hope to do at least 12,000 medical exams on the athletes that are here.”
Athletes will be screened for dental problems, vision and hearing loss and foot problems, among other things. In Seattle, for instance, more than half of the 4,000 athletes were found to be wearing the wrong shoe size.
The games will also have an international flavor for the first time. Because Caribbean countries are often too small to host their own national games, Dzaluk said, they were invited to participate. Twelve, including Haiti and Jamaica, accepted.
There’s no admission charge for fans except at the opening ceremonies, and you might get to catch some legendary athletes. Maitland’s Chris Nikic — the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman triathlon — is slated to compete in a shorter swim-bikerun event.
“We want everything to be perfect for our athletes,” Hurst said. “Because, for some of them, this is something they’ve trained for for years. This is the biggest thing that they might ever do. And we want it to be the highlight of their life.”