As a huge fan of sports, I always love to see the professional sports community embracing Special Olympics and our amazing athletes. I’ve been seeing a lot of great stories this week about professional athletes working with Special Olympics athletes, so I’m very excited to share…
Former South African Olympic swimmer (& soon to be Princess of Monaco) Charlene Wittstock is competing in the Midmar Mile open water swimming event in February to help support Special Olympics athletes! With just a few weeks left until the event, she’s already raised over €60,000 Euros for Special Olympics South Africa! How cool is that? Especially since Special Olympics is launching open water swimming as a demonstration sport at the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece. Thanks Charlene for helping us kick off Special Olympics Open Water Swimming in style! (Check out the whole story on Charlene’s fundraising efforts).
This is a cool story from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The college basketball team got their players together with Special Olympics athletes and had a unified scrimmage match. Special Olympics athletes got to compete with and against their hometown heroes, on the same court where the Tar Heels play! Check out the full article.
Finally, check out some great pictures from our Fan Community of recent events where Special Olympics athletes and unified partners got to hang out with their local sports teams.