Ohio’s Special Olympians going online to stay fit, connected

COLUMBUS (WCMH) —Max Damron misses the competition and misses his teammates. He’s a 21-year-old Franklin County Special Olympic competitor in basketball and bocce, but he has not seen his teammates and friends in months.

“It is a family,” Max’s mother, Octavia, said. “It’s somewhere he can go and have fun, just be himself and not worry about what other people are thinking. Just being with Special Olympics, it kind of eliminates that … he feels free to be himself.”

“I like competing a lot,” Max said. “It’s fun to meet people, gets me out playing sports. I’m just very competitive.”

Special Olympics competitions in Ohio have been postponed or cancelled for the foreseeable future creating a void for the family of athletes.

“It’s been a pretty significant disappointment this year to our athletes, and I get the feeling they just want to stay fit. I think that’s really where most of us are at this point.” said Jessica Stewart, CEO of Special Olympics Ohio. “How do we serve our athletes and how do we pull our athletes together in a platform that’s very different than what we’ve traditionally done in the past?”

Like most businesses or associations during the pandemic, Special Olympics has gone online.

Special Olympics Ohio and many county and local associations have introduced online challenges to keep athletes thinking about their fitness, healthy food choices and even brain-teaser games. Franklin County’s Special Olympic athletes receive numerous messages a week, including instructional videos on how to perform certain exercises and even a joke of the day. Athletes and volunteers say the posts are a way to keep their discussions and relationships together while physically distant.

“Those relationships that are 20 to 30 years plus between many of our volunteers and athletes, that’s a tough thing to not be able to have.” said Ryan Phillips, a member of Franklin County Special Olympics.

Special Olympics Ohio introduced a Fitness Influencer Challenge to its athletes. It’s a competition in which athletes track their daily and weekly physical activity and compete to see where they stand among their peers. Stewart says one athlete will be chosen to become a “fitness influencer” for the organization on all their social media platforms.

“It won’t ever take the place of actually being next to somebody or competing right alongside somebody or getting that social aspect,” Stewart said. “But I think it’s really doing the best we can in this space and in this time.”