ASPEN, CO (WSAU) — A Special Olympics athlete from Central Wisconsin will get her time in the spotlight on Thursday at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado.
Daina Shilts of Neillsville will once again participate in the Unified Snowboarding event alongside Mike Schultz of St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Tommy Jaime of Special Olympics Wisconsin says Shilts has become an inspiration to all of the 9,000 or so athletes that the group serves annually. “She has competed at the biggest stage possible and excelled on the biggest stage possible for many years now. We are excited to see her return to the X Games.”
The event is a partnership between the X Games and Special Olympics that brings an athlete from each group together in a team snowboarding event. Each of the team members will take one run on each of the two competition courses, with the professional athletes racing against one another and the Special Olympics athletes racing one another. The combined best times of each team will determine the results.
Unified Skiiing, which will run similarly, will make its debut at this year’s event.
Both the X Games and Special Olympics have broadcast relationships with ESPN. Shilts has served as an analyst for ESPN’s coverage of the Special Olympics USA Games 2018. Shilts has been a regular at the event, which was added to the X Games program less than ten years ago. She has several silver medals in the event alongside well-known Olympic and X Games snowboarder Hannah Teter. This will be the first time she has competed alongside someone other than Teter.
Schultz has had his own obstacles to overcome on his way to action sports fame as well. He is an above-the-knee amputee who created his own prosthetic to help him compete in X Games events such as snowcross and Moto X.
Thursday’s event begins at 11:30 AM central time, 10:30 mountain, and will be streamed live through the X Games’ various social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
