Stories From the Field of Play

My name is Rob van Someren Brand, and I’m a football coach for Special Olympics Germany in Berlin.

The role of a coach comes down to being a strong and supportive leader. As Special Olympics New York coaches, we do this with and for the athletes. We're taking the sport that we love and sharing it because we want to make a change in this world for the better.

Michel needed a job to support his mother and younger siblings, but he had yet to develop the social and adaptive skills that are so necessary in the workplace. Among other things, he had to adapt to working and communicating with a variety of people.

A new Swedish TV show, Heja Sverigelaget! (Go, Team Sweden!), which follows the journey of four Special Olympics athletes to World Games 2019 in Abu Dhabi, has captured the imagination of the Swedish public!

A month before Chris Nikic, Special Olympics Florida athlete, becomes the first person with Down syndrome to compete in a full IRONMAN race on 7 November 2020, he is taking the media by storm as a groundbreaking and high performance athlete.

This post first appeared in Human Race from Special Olympics Asia Pacific.

When you talk to Coach Roberto about coaching for Special Olympics New Jersey now, he still has passion in his voice, the same passion he exudes when he talks about his family.

Kevin Brown has overcome just about every obstacle put in front of him. He’s never let failure or people giving him a hard time stop him from doing what he loves. But most of all, he puts others first, leads by example and goes above and beyond, even in these uncertain times.

All Special Olympics Programs are experiencing a new kind of normal in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing all to go virtual this year.

Through sports, Special Olympics athletes build skills and become leaders—on the field and in the community. Stephanie Handojo can tell you all about it! For Stephanie, swimming has been a great way to shatter stereotypes about the skills and stamina of people with Down syndrome. But to do this, she had to overcome many obstacles, including a huge one: her fear of water.