Special Olympics Virtual Summer Games

In May, we trained and competed in the Special Olympics Virtual Summer Games.  Brett was the only one who formally entered the competition, but Reggie, Lydia and I trained and competed along with him for the fun of it.

We held the official event over a weekend, recreating some of our favorite parts of the summer games.  The entrance of the athletes during the opening ceremony is a special experience that can't be recreated in all it's fanfare, but we did our best with what we had.  It included a special announcement, WWE-style entrance music, a handcrafted torch, the National Anthem, and a few curious looks from neighbors!

On to "Victory Village", which is generally a carnival-like atmosphere with games and free stuff, the kids set out our yard games and the refrigerator box became a food truck.  We had badges and meal tickets and food.  Because Brett is all about the food.

Then we "competed" in track and basketball events.  It was fun for Brett to compete in the basketball events.  Due to scheduling, in real life, he can only compete in track.  Many of the basketball events were number of baskets out of 20.  So, for example, he made 16 layups out of 20.  He competed in the same track events as last year.  We had everything measured out and marked with sidewalk chalk.

When the events were complete, I entered Brett's results into the SOMN website.  They gathered results from athletes around the state, created ability-level divisions, and virtual medals were emailed to the athletes. They put together an overall celebration video and a highlight video for each sport (track, basketball, and gymnastics - no swimming this year).  Brett is featured in the highlight video @ 1:08, but I highly watching the entire video.  It will make any day better!

Here is the highlight video I created from our stay-at-home summer games.

It was announced this week that the Special Olympics will be doing virtual competition for bocce and softball.  Better get on Amazon and order a bocce set!  I'm crossing my fingers that flag football will be in real life.