Ten local athletes competed in the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games last week in Minnesota, with some athletes coming home with medals.

Jennifer Goff competed in bocce alongside Scott Ball from Pittsburg. On Monday, the doubles team won three matches for Kansas in the round robin, starting with a 4-3 win before a 6-4 and a 7-4 win. Goff and Ball lost their final match of the day 9-2 to a Wyoming team.

On the final day, Goff and three others with the Kansas team went 2-2. After a 12-4 loss to Illinois, Kansas beat Wyoming 7-4 but lost 7-6 to New York in the following match. Kansas finished the day beating Wyoming 8-3 to take third place.

Megan Miller competed in doubles cornhole with Abbi Griswold from Wichita. The duo went 1-1 on their first day, losing to Mississippi 14-9 and beating a separate Mississippi team 11-4. On the medal day, the doubles team placed fourth, going 0-2 again. They lost 15-5 to the first-place team from Wisconsin and lost 7-5 to the Mississippi team they beat previously.

Six local athletes competed in traditional 5 vs. 5 flag football, which was coached by three Douglas County program coaches. Rickey Danberry, Colin Hughes, Skyler McMillin, CJ Mills, Brady Tanner and Tim Trowbridge all made up the team, which Gary Tanner, Mark McMillin and Charles Mills coached.

Kansas lost to Virginia on the first day and lost to Pennsylvania on the second. Kansas took third in the two-day medal round, first losing to the second-place Michigan by a point before finishing with a 24-20 win over fourth-place Nebraska.

Ethan Folks swam the 25-yard freestyle in 16.71 seconds and finished second in his preliminary heat and swam the 25-yard backstroke in 21.31 seconds, which was eighth in his heat. In the finals, Folks finished the 25-yard freestyle in 16.41 seconds, which was fifth in his heat and sixth overall. Folks was also part of the 4×25-yard relay team, swimming the first leg and helping Kansas finish in 1 minute, 17.07 seconds.

Victoria VanAlstine also swam for Kansas. She finished seventh in her preliminary heat in the 50-yard butterfly, finishing in 1:02.88. In the 25-yard freestyle prelim race, she finished in 23.11 seconds, which was fifth in her heat. In the 25-yard freestyle finals, she swam in 23.61 seconds, which was fifth in her heat and finished fourth in her finals heat of the 50-yard butterfly with a 1:03.77 time. VanAlstine swam with the 4×25-yard relay team with Folks, and she swam in the third leg.

The games lasted a week and concluded with a closing ceremony on Saturday at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minnesota. The Special Olympics will host World Games in 2027 in Santiago, Chile.