Special Olympics Indiana – Ripley Ohio Dearborn Counties’ (SOIN-ROD) athlete, Chris Perdue of Osgood, IND, is snowboarding in ESPN’s X Games Aspen. The X Games will take place from January 26-29 on Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colorado. Coverage of the X Games can be viewed on ESPN and ABC.
While training in Killington, VT to compete for the World Winter Games, taking place in March, Perdue was nominated by his Team USA coach to compete in the X Games. Special Olympics International then selected Perdue along with eight other athletes to participate in the third annual Unified Snowboarding Races and the Hannah Teter Unified Snowboard Dual Slalom. Among those eight athletes are two from Austria, home of the 2017 World Winter Games, one from Australia, Japan, Norway and Russia and athletes from Wisconsin and Oregon.
Teter, a two-time Olympic medalist and global ambassador for Special Olympics, helped bring the event to the X Games.
Perdue was chosen as a talented snowboarder, as well as an outstanding representative of the Special Olympics community of athletes, to demonstrate the power of sport to promote unity and inclusion in society.
For the third consecutive year, this event will provide an opportunity for X Games Aspen pro athletes and fans to see the power of Special Olympics in action. The Unified Snowboarding Races will provide professional winter sports athletes an opportunity to partner with Special Olympics athletes on X Games slopes. Through this event, Special Olympics will further cultivate another annual tradition that celebrates individuals with and without intellectual disabilities partnering in sports.
Competition Schedule:
Thursday, January 26th @ 11:30 a.m. (Mountain Time/Cinti 1:30 p.m.)
Third Annual Special Olympics Unified Snowboarding Race – Buttermilk Mountain
Friday, January 27th @ 1:00 p.m. (Mountain Time/Cinti 3:00 p.m.)
Fourth Annual Hannah Teter Unified Race Presented by Perfect Sense (Dual Slalom at NASTAR Course)
About X Games:
X Games, an annual sports event controlled and arranged by American sports broadcaster, ESPN (with coverage also shown on its sister network ABC) returns to Aspen, Colorado’s Buttermilk Mountain from January 26-29. Inviting the top Ski, Snowboard, Snowmobile and Snow Bike athletes to compete in 18 different disciplines over four days of the world’s premier winter extreme action sports, music festival.
ESPN took to the idea quicker than she had hoped, and the event debuted in 2015.
For Teter, who has been inspired by a brother with intellectual disabilities, the event gives as much to the pro riders as they give to it.
“I think the pro riders take away just as much as the special Olympians do,” she said. “The Special Olympic athletes bring us back to our roots, which is how you get better.”
Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics International, said the X Games have created a model for other sports to follow. High schools up through pro sports should have unified events that include Special Olympic athletes.
“I think we’re witnessing the beginning of a whole new model of what great sports looks like,” said Shriver, the son of the organization’s founder, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
“There should be parallel, heats, divisions, competitors. And the fans will love it and people will learn a profound lesson that to this time, sport has not taught, which is that the main measure of a person’s capacity to compete in sport is not who they beat but how well they compete. Not who is the best but what’s your best?”
ABOUT THE 2017 WORLD WINTER GAME IN AUSTRIA
Every two years, the world transcends the boundaries of geography, nationality, political philosophy, gender, age, culture and religion to come together for the Special Olympics World Games. Alternating between summer and winter Games, this event is the flagship event of the Special Olympics movement, which promotes equality, tolerance and acceptance around the world.
The Games will be spread throughout Austria in Graz, Ramsau and Schladming, from March 14-25, 2017.
The World Games are flagship events for the Special Olympics Movement. They take place every two years and alternate between Summer and Winter Games. The Games can be the world’s largest sporting event of the year. Thousands of athletes, coaches, volunteers and supporters attend to see and cheer the skills and accomplishments of people with intellectual disabilities.
The 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games are expected to bring 3.000 athletes of 110 nations to compete. SOIN-ROD is currently fundraising to send Perdue to Austria. Donations can be sent to 2017 World Winter Games, 429 Manchester St., Aurora, IN 47001. Checks need to be made payable to Special Olympics Indiana.
ESPN to Champion World Games
Special Olympics is very excited to announce that the ESPN and ABC networks will deliver coverage of the Special Olympics World Winter Games 2017 for the first time ever.
ESPN’s global television networks and digital media will bring extensive coverage to sports fans and supporters of the Special Olympics movement around the world. ESPN’s coverage, from March 18-25, marks the first-ever global coverage for a World Winter Games event.
As an official broadcaster of the Special Olympics World Winter Games, ESPN’s television coverage will be carried across its networks in the U.S. as well as streamed through WatchESPN and the ESPN App.
