The inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in team sports: lessons from the Youth Unified Sports programme of Special Olympics

This article examines the Special Olympics' Youth Unified Sports programme across five countries within its Europe/Eurasia region. It focuses upon the process by which impact is achieved, led for the most part by coaches involved in preparing participants for competition through training. This is realized through the creation of sports teams, which in the case of this research means association football and basketball teams, in which athletes (young people with intellectual disabilities, ID) are selected alongside partners (contemporaries without an ID) to form coherent units that then compete against other such teams locally, nationally and, occasionally, internationally. The results of this investigation reveal the positive impact, upon integration and inclusion, for athletes offered by the Unified Sports programme and point to the powerful outcomes for a host of stakeholders, ranging from Special Olympics at an organizational level, relatives of participants, partners and coaches as well as the athletes themselves.