By Erin Holloway, Special Olympics Colorado Athlete Leader

This past weekend, I attended the Team Colorado training camp to prepare for the 2026 USA Games. Training camp was held December 5 through 7 in Grand Junction.

Training camp was an experience for the entire Colorado team. It was an opportunity for everyone to unite together as one team and get a feeling for what it will be like to travel to Minnesota next summer for the Games and work together as Team Colorado.

Training camp wasn’t just about training for the sports we are competing in. It was much more than that. We got to experience what it was like staying and moving together as one large group. For example, I had only been with my swim team of 4 swimmers prior to training camp. Now, we know what it is like to be part of a delegation of 120 athletes.

To kick off training camp, there was a Team Colorado dinner and dance on Friday night, followed by team building skills. My favorite part of the night was when swimming worked together on a team banner. We all had ideas and participated in drawing our banner and it was a really cool banner. We also tried on the Team Colorado clothing we will be wearing and practiced patience. We had to use teeny tiny little tents to try the clothes on, which made it quite the experience!

Saturday was a big, full day. We had to rise and shine early to have breakfast as a team. Then we all traveled to our different venues for practice. My swim team headed to the community pool where we had a practice packed full of things we needed to work on, such as timing, different skills to try and other tips and tricks from our coach. It was a big practice, but I learned a lot! It was great to see how far we’ve come in the little time that we’ve been on Team Colorado and how much we have improved in our skills. I also enjoyed being with my team and continuing to get to know each other.

Once we returned to our hotel, we quickly changed for an early dinner and then we were off to the Grand Junction Parade of Lights, where we were marching in the parade! When we first got to the Parade, we had to stand and wait together for a long time, which taught us more patience and how to keep moving, even after a long day of practice or competition. It will be a similar experience standing and waiting at Opening Ceremonies, and this was an opportunity to keep building and preparing us for what’s to come. Once the Parade of Lights officially started and we got rolling, it was a lot of fun. We walked in front of our float, which was very festive. As we walked along the parade route, we waved and cheered to the crowd and handed out candy the people along the route. It was loud and crowded but very exciting. Kind of how it will be in Minnesota!

Then, another bus ride back to our hotel to get a much-needed, good night’s sleep.

On the final day of training camp, we had one last team breakfast and headed to our final practices. For me, that practice was really fun because we worked on jumping off the starting blocks. These were important because if you have a good start, then you’ll have a good race. It was a great skill to practice! We also practiced our timing for our events, and it was fun because we all had faster times than we had before, which felt good!

Once practice was over, we returned to the hotel to get ready for our final bus ride back to Denver.

Overall, Team Colorado training camp was a valuable experience of what life will be like for 6 days at the 2026 USA Games in Minnesota. There will be long days and a lot of patience while waiting long amounts of time. I’m looking forward to competing with and cheering for our teammates, winning and making new friends. USA Games, here we come!