The Xperience is Special Olympics tennis at its best. This three-day tennis extravaganza, in Charlottsville, VA, took place January 9-11 at the Boar's Head Inn & Sports Club, one of the country’s finest tennis venues and a fitting location for thirty-three of the best Special Olympics tennis athletes in the nation. The annual event was created in 2008 to fulfill the dream of Special Olympics Virginia athlete Jon Fried and his family to host a competitive tennis experience in Virginia.
Jon Fried and fellow Virginian Chris Raupp took home gold in their respective divisions, while division 1A gold went to Ryan Smith from Florida after a hard fought battle with Rachel Sweatt from Arkansas.
Bring together 33 tennis players from fifteen Special Olympics Programs, mix in world-class volunteers from UVA athletics programs and the Charlottesville tennis community, and you’ve got an ace of an event!
Click here to see the joy and excitement of The-Xperience.
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Special Olympics is a global inclusion movement using sport, health, education and leadership programs every day around the world to end discrimination against and empower people with intellectual disabilities. The organization recently hit a mile stone with more than 6 million athletes and Unified Sports partners. There were 106,300 Special Olympics sports competitions in 2018 averaging 291 per day and 12 per hour. These events ranged from local competitions or sports tournaments to Regional or World Games. The North America Region serves over 755,000 athletes and nearly 130,000 Unified partners. In 2018, there were 24,769 competitions held, including 8,339 with Unified Sports. That equals 68 competitions a day and 3 competitions an hour.
