Marquel Russell stands near the starting line and does a box jump to relax his muscles. He closes his eyes and lets his body loosen up. It’s important that his body is loose, and his mind is focused so he can get the most out of his run. It’s just seconds before the 100m final at the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games. He sinks into the starting blocks and ignores all the external factors; it’s just him and the track. He says of the start, “I listen to that boom, then shoo, I go off.”
The Special Olympics Kansas team is down at the finish line. Spectators are cheering, and his coaches wait in anticipation. Russell gets a good lead. With every step, his cheeks bounce around—a telling sign that he’s doing what he’s supposed to. Brent Kaiser yells as he runs past, “Go, Marquel! Go, Marquel! Go, Marquel! Go, Marquel!” As he crosses the finish line, he pushes his chest across the line.
Kaiser screams, “11.87, we have a new USA Games record, woo, yeah.” Kaiser, the assistant head of delegation, knew Russell had what it took to win. Having competed in athletics himself during college, he made sure he was there to coach Russell. The experience of competing at the highest level and attention to detail helped.
“I was just coming here to race and do the best I can,” Russell says. “I wasn’t really expecting to break another record, so it’s pretty awesome.”
Just days earlier in the running long jump event, he set a new national record, hitting exactly 5.71m. His dad, Jason Russell, jokingly says, “Not as good as his mom, but still good,” showing the type of lighthearted relationship they have. As he bounces up from the sand, he spots the camera and gives the viewers some excitement. He has a lot to be proud of.
In the months leading up to the USA Games, Russell and his coaches spent a lot of time fine-tuning the details and making sure he was feeling good. He’d go to the gym and do his own workout routines and would spend time on the track working on the events he would be running. “Four days a week, he’s got practice or training,” Jason says. “He doesn’t just sit on the couch and do nothing. All the things he’s doing keep him in pretty good shape.”
It’s no surprise that he was one of the standout athletes at the USA Games. In high school, Russell won the 2021 6A Kansas State Track & Field Championship for the 110m hurdles with a time of 14.79 seconds. He had offers to run in college, but his family decided to go down another route because “the studying, it'd be very difficult for him,” his dad says.
“He’s one of the most athletic people I know,” his brother, John Killinger, says. “He’s one of the hardest-working individuals I know and puts a lot of work in.”
Russell finished the USA Games with three gold medals and two national records. He is an elite-level athlete who has proven his skill at every level. Now, his eyes are set on the next big goal. “I know I really want this, I want to go to Chile, and it’s something that I want to work towards,” Russell says. “I’m just putting the work in now.”
Next year’s 2027 Special Olympics World Games in Santiago will be the first time the event will be hosted in the Southern Hemisphere in the nearly sixty-year history of Special Olympics. The best athletes from around the world will compete. Russell hopes to be one of them.
His dad watches YouTube clips of the sprinters from the 2023 Special Olympics World Games in Berlin and evaluates how Russell would stack up against the faster guys. He knows that with the proper time and training camp, he can find much success.
“The way he ran, the records he broke, the sportsmanship he showed,” are all factors his dad says should help him get selected for Santiago.
