{"id":53313,"date":"2017-02-28T15:10:28","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T21:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=53313"},"modified":"2017-02-28T15:11:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T21:11:03","slug":"chicagoan-headed-to-the-2017-special-olympic-winter-world-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicagoan-headed-to-the-2017-special-olympic-winter-world-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicagoan headed to the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> By Rosie Langello <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">Barbra Shimoda said she vividly remembers the first time her son starting skating at the age of 7. She\u00a0never imagined it would lead to him\u00a0attending the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen,\u201d Barbra Shimoda said. \u201cWe know we have our State Games in Illinois but the World Games\u2014it\u2019s just not something you can plan for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Out of 6,800 Chicago Special Olympic athletes, Tommy Shimoda is the only Chicagoan attending the games. The 24-year-old is headed to Austria in March with six other athletes from Illinois that will be representing Team USA. He will be competing in two speed skating events; the 500-meter race and the 777-meter race.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Chicagoan headed to the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/206129609?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Shimoda is diagnosed with autism and communicates to others using a voice box. He\u2019s been skating for 17 years and said his biggest inspiration is his brother, Clarke.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like speed skating because I get to go fast,\u201d Shimoda said. \u201cSince I started training more for the games, my brother said I now skate faster than him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shimoda has been preparing for the World Games ever since he found out he would be attending after the State Games last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been practicing three times a week,\u201d Shimoda said.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago Parks District coach, Lisa Mulcrone said she was thrilled when she received an email announcement from Illinois Special Olympics that he would be attending the games.<\/p>\n<p>Mulcrone said that when they found out about Shimoda attending the games, they were already skating every Saturday. They decided to kick it up a notch by adding two more practices in a week and they brought in skating coach, Kevin Coyne.<\/p>\n<p>Coyne became involved \u00a0after he interned for Special Olympics Massachusetts in college. When he moved to Chicago, he met Shimoda during an ice hockey practice. He now coaches Shimoda and a UAA hockey team in Norwood Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was first asked to come and help out with coaching, I didn\u2019t realize the extent of it,\u201d Coyne said. \u201cBarbra said he would be competing and when she told me that he was going to World Games it was definitely special. He deserves it after all the hard work he has been putting in with ice hockey and speed skating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shimoda isn\u2019t a stranger when it comes to competition. Mulcrone said that she has coached him in over 14 different sports throughout this year in the Parks district and said that Shimoda never has an offseason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can show Tommy something once on the ice or in the gymnastics center and if you show him the right way, he will pick it up very easily just by watching him do it,\u201d Mulcrone said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great teammate, he comes to every single practice and his family is great as well. They make sure he gets to every single practice and he\u2019s with us five days a week practicing for different sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barbra, his brother Clarke and Mulcrone will be traveling to the World Games with Tommy. While their rooms and flights have been booked, Barbra said now it\u2019s just a matter of packing and waiting for everything to fall in place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe craziest part about it, is not knowing the schedule,\u201d Barbra said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what is happening day to day and we are planning for a two-week trip that all of the rules and all of the dates are kind of fluid and kind of changing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Coyne will not be attending the World Games, he will be able to watch Shimoda compete on ESPN and ABC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to thank Special Olympic Illinois and Special Olympic Chicago,\u201d Barbra said. \u201cThey are the organizations that have made this possible, not only for my son but for every athlete in Illinois that has special needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Photo at top: Tommy Shimoda warms up at practice before training with his skating coach, Kevin Coyne (Rosie Langello\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rosie Langello Barbra Shimoda said she vividly remembers the first time her son starting skating at the age of 7. She\u00a0never imagined it would lead to him\u00a0attending the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games. \u201cNot in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen,\u201d Barbra Shimoda said. \u201cWe know we have our State [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":383,"featured_media":53314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,3516],"tags":[3776,3774,3775],"class_list":["post-53313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-winter-2017","tag-espn","tag-special-olympics","tag-speed-skating"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chicagoan headed to the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicagoan-headed-to-the-2017-special-olympic-winter-world-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicagoan headed to the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Rosie Langello Barbra Shimoda said she vividly remembers the first time her son starting skating at the age of 7. She\u00a0never imagined it would lead to him\u00a0attending the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games. \u201cNot in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen,\u201d Barbra Shimoda said. \u201cWe know we have our State [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicagoan-headed-to-the-2017-special-olympic-winter-world-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-28T21:10:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-28T21:11:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-02-27-at-2.39.58-PM.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2424\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1354\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"roselangello2017\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"roselangello2017\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicagoan-headed-to-the-2017-special-olympic-winter-world-games\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicagoan-headed-to-the-2017-special-olympic-winter-world-games\/\",\"name\":\"Chicagoan headed to the 2017 Special Olympic Winter World Games - 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