GREAT FALLS — Some of the best athletes from around the state gathered for a sendoff in Great Falls Friday – ready to represent Montana at the Special Olympics USA Summer Games in Seattle next week.
Team Montana is 23 members strong – featuring 12 athletes, six unified partners and five coaches. The delegation flies out Saturday morning for five consecutive days of competition against over 4000 athletes and coaches from around the country. The games will feature 10,000 volunteers and over 70,000 spectators. And of course, like any Special Olympics event, competition is only half the fun.
“Through the process, we’re going to have performances by nationally know artists, and then there’s a huge fourth of July celebration inside Washington Husky Stadium,” said Special Olympics Montana Sports Director Scott Held. “In addition to that there’s going to be all sorts of festivities and every single state in the country is going to be bringing a lot of athletes and there will be a lot of relationship forming going on which will be fun.”
The Montana delegation is below.
USA GAMES – TEAM MONTANA DELEGATION
| Participant | Role | Sport | Hometown |
| Joey Hancock | Coach | Bowling | Bozeman |
| Avery Corneliusen | Unified Partner | Bowling | Billings |
| Garrison Hein | Athlete | Bowling | Billings |
| Taffy McCombs | Unified Partner | Bowling | Cut Bank |
| Katie Siebrecht | Athlete | Bowling | Cut Bank |
| Kathy Wanner | Coach | Bocce | Great Falls |
| Linda Croskrey | Unified Partner | Bocce | Great Falls |
| Betsy Schaffer | Athlete | Bocce | Great Falls |
| Sadie Bailey | Unified Partner | Bocce | Victor |
| Zoe Barber | Athlete | Bocce | Victor |
| Kris Kelly | Coach | Bocce | Polson |
| Michael Vergeront | Unified Partner | Bocce | Polson |
| Chance Hoover | Athlete | Bocce | Polson |
| Nate Lopez | Unified Partner | Bocce | Anaconda |
| Dillon Pickering | Athlete | Bocce | Anaconda |
| Mark Kuhr | Coach | Powerlifting | Whitefish |
| Sylvester Vermillion | Athlete | Powerlifting | Columbia Falls |
| Chandler Krahn | Athlete | Powerlifting | Charlo |
| Greg Grove | Coach | Athletics | Eureka |
| Jen Mazur | Athlete | Athletics | Great Falls |
| Ellen Bischoff | Athlete | Athletics | Helena |
| Zach Stenson | Athlete | Athletics | Butte |
| Jon Turner | Athlete | Athletics | Big Timber |
The 2018 USA games will be broadcast on the ABC family of networks including ESPN2 and ESPN3.
TV SCHEDULE (ALL TIMES ET)
Sunday, July 1
2018 Special Olympics USA Games Opening Ceremony
3:30 p.m.
ABC
Monday, July 2
2018 Special Olympics USA Games
6 p.m.
ESPN2
LIVE Special Olympics Swimming 5 p.m. ESPN3
Tuesday, July 3
2018 Special Olympics USA Games
6 p.m.
ESPN2
LIVE Special Olympics Swimming 4:30 p.m. ESPN3
Wednesday, July 4
2018 Special Olympics USA Games
5 p.m.
ESPN2
LIVE Special Olympics Swimming 1 p.m. ESPN3
Thursday, July 5
2018 Special Olympics USA Games
6 p.m.
ESPN2
LIVE Special Olympics Swimming 4:30 p.m. ESPN3
Friday, July 6
2018 Special Olympics USA Games
6 p.m.
ESPN2
Sunday, July 8
2018 Special Olympics USA Games
2 p.m.
ABC
