Special Olympics Badmintonathon

On Sunday 22 May, Harry Arksey an England Badminton Player will be joining the Exeter and District Special Olympics team for a charity fundraiser.

The badminton fun-day is packed with badminton games, coaching sessions and mini challenges. We also have eight volunteers who are taking on the challenge to play 12 hours of badminton straight.

The Badmintonathon is being hosted in the Sports Hall at Exeter University from 8am until 4pm; everyone is welcome!

The Special Olympics is a charity that gets people with intellectual disabilities (such as Autism and Down Syndrome) involved with sports.

The Exeter team is lucky enough to have the opportunity to send seven of our athletes to the National Games in 2017- a big achievement! We depend on events such as this to raise the funds we need to send our athletes.

The Exeter and District team have 20 athletes who train with us on a regular basis, with sessions being held three times a week.

The Special Olympics was set up in America by Eunice Shriver in 1962 who hosted tennis games in her back garden for her disabled son; when she realised that sport was a good way of enabling people with learning disabilities to grow their confidence.