S.C. Special Olympics athletes return home

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WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — South Carolina’s Special Olympics athletes returned home at Columbia Metropolitan Airport Monday. The 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games wrapped up in Los Angeles yesterday Sunday evening. Six Palmetto State athletes competed in the week-long competition. “Our guys are real competitors,” S.C. Special Olympics Director of Communications Leigh Cheatham says. “They train really hard.” 24-year-old North Myrtle Beach resident, Nicole Landoskey, started playing bocce ball for a very simple reason– because it was fun. Two years after picking up the game, she returns home with gold and bronze medals. “Oh it was exciting,” she says. “It was very exciting.” The games were equally exciting for her father, Frank. “My heart stopped just about every time she rolled the ball,” he says. “I never in my wildest dreams thought that I’d have an Olympic athlete.” Nicole’s teammate, Scott Rohrer, set a world record for the games on the golf course. Sailing duo, Kylie MacFarland and Ellinor Walters picked up a bronze out on the water. Though, Special Olympics is not about the medals. “It’s all about teamwork,” Nicole says. “I’m having fun playing and making new friends.” 6,500 athletes competed. They come from 160 countries. “This is really the culmination of all of their training to compete in World Games,” Cheatham says. These athletes train year-round, often in multiple sports. S.C. Special Olympics holds 400 events each year, here in the state alone.