Nearly 4 million athletes and Unified Sports partners participate in Special Olympics. More than 3 million participants are people with intellectual disabilities and over 600,000 are Unified partners without intellectual disabilities who compete on the same teams.
- There are 227 accredited Special Olympics Programs in 177 countries and territories operating over 20,000 local clubs. Find Special Olympics near you: programs
- Over 700,000 volunteers make Special Olympics possible. More than 330,000 of those volunteers are coaches, of which 46% are female.
- Over 18,000 Unified Schools have been established around the world, and nearly 100,000 youth leaders have been trained.
- There were more than 46,000 Special Olympics sports competitions in 2022—that’s 126 per day, or 5.5 per hour! Approximately 16,000 of those competitions were Unified, where people with and without intellectual disabilities competed on the same teams.
- We offer 30+ Olympic-style sports. Athletics continues to be the most popular Special Olympics sport globally, followed by football (soccer), basketball, and bocce.
- Special Olympics conducted 42,000 Healthy Athletes screenings in 2022, with more than two million screenings since Healthy Athletes began in 1997. In 2022, we trained 38,000 healthcare professionals for a total of 300,000 since 1997.
Special Olympics offers programming in:
- Sports. Offering high-quality training and competition in an inclusive culture that stresses athletic excellence, rewards determination, emphasizes health and celebrates personal achievement.
- Education. Equipping young people and adult influencers with tools to create sports, classroom and community actions that produce friendships and acceptance, driving positive attitude and behavioral change.
- Health. Ensuring ongoing access to quality, community-based healthcare services, highlighted by free health screenings at Special Olympics competitions.
- Leadership. Helping people without disabilities go from unconscious bias to conscious inclusion, changing their attitudes and behaviors to create meaningful inclusion in their organizations, families and communities.
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Last Updated 31 January 2024