Special Olympics Minnesota Holding Virtual Summer Games

There are 19 different events in this year's virtual summer games. Athletes can complete the event from home and submit their times online.

ITASCA, Minn. – “It was a little difficult to reach out to my athletes and tell them that we weren’t going to have our traditional summer games,” Team Itasca head coach Dani Druse said.

Every year, the Special Olympics Minnesota Summer Games are normally held at the University of St. Thomas, bringing athletes together from across the state. But like most things, they were canceled this year due to COVID-19.

“I feel sad. I miss Special Olympics when we don’t have it,” said athlete Laurie Schroeder, who’s been participating in Special Olympics for 33 years.

“For some of our athletes, Special Olympics is almost all that they have. That’s all they do, that’s what they focus on. For those that Special Olympics is their main go-to, it’s harder on them,” unified partner and coach Baylie Norris added.

But this year, Special Olympics Minnesota is going virtual.

“They were working really hard on getting the virtual summer games as an option so that way we could still keep our athletes engaged and still have something available to them,” Druse said.

The virtual games has 19 events, ranging from basketball skills to gymnastics to running and walking.

“One of my favorite things to do is track,” athlete Ben Pederson said, who’s been competing in Special Olympics since 2003.

“Some of the events that are being offered also are not traditional events such as how many sit-ups can you do in 60 seconds and how many push-ups can you do in 60 seconds. We’ve got athletes that are showing us our best layup, their best dunk and their best trick shot that they’ve got. At a traditional summer games, they’re limited on what they can be involved in, so this is kind of the fun part of the virtual games because they can do all 19 events which is pretty cool because they can’t normally get that opportunity,” Druse added.

While they can’t hold team practices, the coaches are doing what they can to keep their athletes active and motivated to participate in these summer games.

“When I go running, we always stop to take pictures and I’ve been posting pictures on Facebook saying hey we’re out here running, getting ready to do some of the summer games activities and recording my score. Just showing them through Facebook that we’re doing them too and they’re really easy to do and you can do them anywhere with anything,” Norris said.

Coaches also hold virtual meetings, which helps give the athletes the social connection that they’re currently missing.

“Many of these athletes, they look towards those state events because they know someone from the other side of the state that they know they’re going to see them there and greet each other with great big smiles and great big hugs,” Druse said.

The athletes and coaches patiently wait to have in person games again so they can reunite with one another.

“I’ll be really excited and happy and get to see my friends and stuff as well,” Schroeder said.

“My favorite part of Special Olympics is meeting new people and being with a lot of my friends. I like giving hugs,” Pederson added.

They’re all trying to come together virtually to show support for Special Olympics and their athletes.

“Minnesota has shown how important this is to our athletes and I think it’s going to make a world of difference during this time and after this time and I do think will bring us together more and our relationships stronger and our love for Special Olympics stronger, too,” Norris said.

Athletes can submit their times online by May 18. Special Olympics Minnesota will then put a video together and release it on social media on May 27 at 7:00 p.m. to show videos of the athletes competing from home and release results. You can also volunteer virtually for the games this year. For more information, visit the Special Olympics Minnesota website.