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Athletes

Pallino on the Move

Emileigh Marsh sits in a wheelchair on an indoor turf competition field, wearing a gray and red Texas team shirt and a yellow credential lanyard. Bocce courts and event participants are visible in the background.

Staged under fluorescent lights, an orderly arrangement of turf courts hosts their competition: Special Olympics USA Games bocce athletes and Unified partners, athletes without intellectual disabilities. The courts are identical in nature, with their regulation ball sets, a measuring device, scoreboard and pallino, the target ball players aim to throw closest to in order to score. Only when the athletes enter its confines, does the court begin to change shape, each containing a story of unwavering focus, of overcoming.