{"id":33991,"date":"2023-08-22T12:31:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T11:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=33991"},"modified":"2023-08-22T12:31:56","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T11:31:56","slug":"special-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/special-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"I was bursting with pride when I saw my son win silver at the Special Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shirley is mum to Dan, 27, who is supported in his hometown of Rotherham by Sense. Dan is autistic, and also has epilepsy and a learning disability. In this blog, Shirley tells us all about how much Dan has always loved sports, which led him to Berlin to compete in the Special Olympics World Games 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dan\u2019s been attending Sheffield Special Olympics<\/a>, a sports club for disabled athletes, since he was about five years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s tried different sports over the years, but at the minute he\u2019s part of the ten pin bowling team. He trains with them every other Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, I was bursting with pride when I took him to Berlin to compete in the Special Olympics World Games 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sports are a huge part of Daniel\u2019s life<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When he first started going to Sheffield Special Olympics, Dan was doing gymnastics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, he went into equestrian events, and tried athletics, too. He competed in national events for both of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also discovered that he loves horses \u2013 and he still volunteers at the stables today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for the past nine years, his main sport has been ten pin bowling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s competed nationally a few times, but this year\u2019s Special Olympics World Games in Berlin was his first international competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were lots of challenges, sporting and otherwise<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Shirley<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was not only proud of Dan for competing, but for the personal achievement of getting to the games themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We flew to Stuttgart, then got the coach to Berlin, which was a long trip. We were travelling most of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the event kicked off with the opening ceremony, and then one thing after another. It was amazing, but so loud and manic sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were 7,000 athletes taking part, so you could imagine how busy it was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could all be very overwhelming for Dan, but he was so well supported by the event organisers. There were plenty of supportive volunteers on hand to help, and lots of chilled-out rooms where participants could take a break with drinks and games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did have some difficult moments, because Dan got tired. It was a lot for him. We were there for 14 days in total, and about halfway through, he got homesick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also had to share a room with someone else, which was the first time he\u2019s done that for more than a weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a bit worried with how he would handle all of this, but he was amazing. He did so well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was so proud of Daniel and of everyone who took part<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was ecstatic when Dan won a silver medal with his bowling team. He also got bronze medals in the doubles and singles events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m an assistant coach for the bowling team, so I know them all well, and I was proud to see all of them win medals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Special Olympics, there are winners, but everyone is also awarded for taking part. The ethos of it is that everyone\u2019s given a chance, and it\u2019s about people taking part and doing their best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of them do want to win but the ethos for the athletes is \u2018If I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt\u2019. It is the fact that they\u2019re given the chance to take part and they put in 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It made me so proud of Dan, and proud of everybody. Being able to see all different countries all coming together, it was just fabulous. Tiring, but fabulous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Dan\u2019s going back into training for his next event. We can\u2019t wait to travel to our next national or international competition!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shirley tells us all about the joy of watching her son Dan, 27, win silver for ten pin bowling at the Special Olympics World Games 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":33992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"display_author":[1245],"class_list":["post-33991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","display_author-shirley"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33991"},{"taxonomy":"display_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display_author?post=33991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}