Baseball legend, Jim Abbott helped announce the location of the Special Olympics Unified Cup 2022 through an extensive interview with MLB Network. The Michigan native joined Alanna Rizzo on High Heat to discuss Detroit hosting the tournament and share detail about the event.
In July 2022, Detroit will welcome nearly 600 athletes from up to 31 nations to compete in football (soccer)—the world’s most popular sport. The Special Olympics Unified Cup is slated for 31 July – 6 August.
The Special Olympics Unified Cup Detroit 2022 presented by Toyota will be the second-ever tournament in this single-sport series, which challenges negative attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities and demonstrates how playing and competing together breaks down barriers to create a community of acceptance and inclusion. Special Olympics Unified Sports® bring together athletes with and without intellectual disabilities to play on the same team to promote inclusion through sport. Globally, there are more than 885,000 Special Olympics athletes and Unified partners (athletes without intellectual disabilities) who compete in football (soccer). This is the second time in the 53-year history of Special Olympics that the Unified Cup will be held.