The Make Every Race Count campaign was created to help swimmers turn their set backs into success.
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Swimming is one of Special Olympics’ largest and fastest-growing sports, engaging more than 221,000 athletes around the world. With that scale comes an important responsibility: ensuring athletes and coaches are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to compete successfully. As athletes progress and competition standards increase, education and preparation become even more critical to delivering high-quality sport experiences.
Disqualifications are part of the learning journey in swimming and highlight the importance of race readiness and rule understanding. A disqualification (DQ) signifies a swimmer violating one of the official rules regarding starts, strokes, turns, or finishes, resulting in a swimmer’s time being invalid and no longer in the race.
Swimming saw hundreds of disqualifications at the Special Olympics World Games Berlin 2023, highlighting an important opportunity to strengthen rule understanding and race readiness across Special Olympics swimming competitions.
Building on this opportunity, Special Olympics and the Michael Phelps Foundation have launched Make Every Race Count. Make Every Race Count is a campaign to support and supply coaches with practical tools and resources that can be integrated into weekly training sessions to significantly decrease the number of DQs seen across the movement.
“The Special Olympics' Make Every Race Count campaign is incredibly important to the Michael Phelps Foundation. Our work with Special Olympics athletes and coaches is designed to deepen their understanding of competitive swimming while also reinforcing the importance of sportsmanship, something that’s been central to my journey both in and out of the pool.”
Between now and the Special Olympics World Games in Santiago 2027, the educational campaign, represented by Michael Phelps and Special Olympics’ Kiera Byland, will address the various DQ types, educate coaches and swimmers on proper swimming techniques, and assist in the application of these skills and educational tips.
The campaign’s other areas of focus include educating coaches on sport impact standards and over level disqualification, raising awareness of common disqualifications across the movement, raising awareness of the importance of coaches ensuring their swimmers are race-ready before going to a World Games/competition, and educating and raising awareness of the new head coach standards. The Sport Impact Standards is an optimal experience that is driven by the highest standard of quality across athlete divisioning, sport operations and an enhanced athlete experience.
“With more than 221,000 swimmers and over 20,000 certified coaches worldwide, Swimming is one of our largest sports. Disqualifications are part of learning, but they also show where stronger education and clearer standards can better support athletes and coaches. Make Every Race Count reflects our commitment to sport quality, athlete confidence, and fair competition, and we’re proud to build it with the Michael Phelps Foundation.”
Coach education is crucial in Special Olympics Swimming due to the vast number of participants (221,678) across the globe. Placing an emphasis on sport quality is especially important with the quantity of swimmers to ensure athletes are not only safe, but also confident, physically and mentally, in the water.
What Resources will be Available as part of Make Every Race Count?
- Disqualification Hub
- Coach resource center
- Video gallery
- Sport Impact Standards
- New Head Coach Standards
- Access to the Michael Phelps Foundation Level 1 Online Coaching Course
“I took away a lot of good information about preparation and disqualifications and how to prevent them. I have been working on starts and touches with my athletes while ramping up their training regimens to include concepts I learned at the training.”
The available resources have been put in place to promote clean and consistent swimming techniques in each of the stroke types as well as to increase the level of swimming ability and water safety across the Special Olympics movement. This will lead to improved athlete experiences, with better coaching, across the movement.
Coaches of swimmers competing in the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games from 20 – 26 June had a sneak peek into the campaign materials when they received in-person training last month from the Michael Phelps Foundation. The training saw a visit, and some strong words of advice and encouragement, from Michael Phelps and fellow Olympian, Allison Schmitt, as coaches used this training as a preparation tool prior to USA Games this summer.
Check out all materials and resources part of Make Every Race Count!
