One Game – Two Perspectives? Insights into Team and Competition Experience in Special Olympics Unified Sports® Handball in the Context of the German National Games 2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69665/iss.v48i1.178Keywords:
disability, competition, social support, Grounded TheoryAbstract
This paper analyses team and competition dynamics in Unified Sports® handball at the Special Olympics National Games 2022. Unified Sports® offers three distinct approaches that provide joint sports activities for individuals with intellectual disabilities, called athletes, and those without, referred to as partners. In this study, 25 guideline-based interviews were conducted with players pursuing the Competitive model and analysed using the coding process of Grounded Theory. An objective was to investigate the players’ team and competition experience as well as interaction patterns and their underlying causes in a nuanced manner. The results show prevailing complementary interactions within the handball teams. Partners assume primary responsibility in almost all contexts, guide athletes both within and beyond the sporting context, and provide emotional and practical support. They demonstrate higher handball-specific performance and a more pronounced game understanding than athletes. These performance differences are closely connected to the category of disability. Consequently, the analysed dynamics cannot be clearly attributed to disability or sporting performance. Further interaction patterns may partly be explained by specific requirements of the Unified Sports® concept and the partners’ prosocial behaviour. Because of prevailing ambivalent goals, an area of tension emerges between social inclusion and competition. The results indicate that the competition in Unified Sports® handball does not fully comply with the principles of the Competitive model postulated by Special Olympics.
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