Special Olympics Kentucky

Since 1970, Special Olympics Kentucky has helped people with intellectual disabilities build confidence, increase self-esteem and develop physical fitness with its year-round program of sports training and competition. In addition to experiencing the joy of sports, through Special Olympics competition athletes learn teamwork, how to work with a coach, how to handle adversity and success and how to work to improve their skills -- all life skills that they take with them off the field, court or track and into their schools and their jobs. In a very real way, Special Olympics helps people with intellectual disabilities develop the skills they need to build better, more independent lives.

Special Olympics Kentucky currently offers training and competition in 15 sports statewide that lead to 10 State Level events, including our State Summer Games, which draw more than 1,300 athletes to Richmond, Ky., each year.

If sports were all we did, that would be quite an accomplishment; however, in the 45 years since the first Special Olympics International Games in Chicago, we have become so much more than that.

Through our Healthy Athletes Initiatives, Special Olympics Kentucky provides medical screenings for our athletes and others with intellectual disabilities at events like our State Summer Games and MedFest Health Fairs, providing vision, dental, hearing, foot health and physical therapy screenings -- and during MedFests sports physicals. Many Healthy Athletes programs also provide