Special Olympics athletes from the Hanover School Division gathered at Steinbach Regional on Monday for a competitive bocce ball tournament.

Sara Oswald, a PE teacher at SRSS, says the goal of the event was to bring all athletes together. She says Special Olympics athletes from all high schools in the Hanover School Division participated on teams with SRSS varsity athletes for what turned out to be a great day.

"We decided that we would do this as a unified sport tournament which is where we have students who have intellectual disabilities participating on teams with students who do not have intellectual disabilities so this is a really great way that we build community and we get all of the athletes participating together, bringing different ends of our school together."

Oswald adds the response was very positive and says they hope to make this an annual event. 

"We are trying to build community across multiple disciplines throughout our school, to connect the different types of athletes we have in our school, bring some vision, some publicity to our Special Olympics athletes and give them the opportunity to shine next to some of our varsity athletes."