To provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendships with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.
To help persons with intellectual disabilities participate as productive and respected members of society, by offering them a fair opportunity to develop and demonstrate their skills and talents through sports training and competition, and by increasing the public’s awareness of their capabilities and needs.
The Special Olympics mission remains as vital today as it did when the movement was founded in 1968. Through the power of sport, Special Olympics strives to create a better world by fostering the acceptance and inclusion of all people.
The Special Olympics Movement unlocks the joy of sport to inspire people throughout the world – to open their minds to human giftedness, to accept, include and value people with intellectual disabilities in all aspects of life, and thereby unite people in a shared belief of a more just and welcoming world