INSPIRATIONS
Special Olympian goes for the gold BY ELIZABETH DIFFIN
T
ommy Shimoda may be non-verbal, but he doesn’t need his assistive speech device to communicate how he feels about winning a gold medal at the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games; the smile on his face says it all.
Tommy, 25, has been participating in the special recreation program at Mt. Greenwood Park since he was 5. His first sport was swimming. Since then, he’s added 16 other sports to his repertoire, including his favorite,
gymnastics, and the one that has brought him widespread acclaim, speed skating. “Tommy is willing to do anything and try anything. But when he’s out there competing, and it doesn’t matter
Photos courtesy of Special Olympics Chicago
Tommy with dad Thomas, brother Clark and mom Barb. 40
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Specıal Parent Winter 2018 CHICAGO
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Tommy Shimoda won gold in 500-meter speed skating at the Special Olympics World Winter Games. what it is, he’s glowing,” says his mother, Barbara De Kerf. “Sports give him a great sense of purpose and a great sense of accomplishment.” But ask Tommy, who has autism, why he likes speed skating, and the answer is simple: “Fast,” he says, using the talker. Tommy won not just one, but two medals at the World Winter Games: a gold in the 500-meter race and a bronze in the 777meter. His gold medal race took only 71 seconds. And when he won, he made sure to flash a thumbs-up to his mom, one of their regular rituals. For the entourage of family and friends who traveled with him, the whole experience can only be described as “surreal.” “The feelings are
overwhelming,” his coach and Mt. Greenwood Park’s special recreation director Lisa Mulcrone says. “He’s just a great athlete overall. Every sport he does, he does extremely well.” De Kerf says the win was especially meaningful because the community had a send-off party for Tommy and his fellow athletes before they left for Graz, Austria, and she could still feel that support as she watched her son cross the finish line at the World Games. “I couldn’t put a face to anybody that was there, but it was almost like they were sitting in the stands with us and they were still cheering,” she says. Even when Tommy returned from Austria, gold medal safely in hand (even now, it’s never far away), those feelings didn’t go
| ChicagoParent.com
2/1/18 2:00 PM