Abstract
Introduction
Special Olympics Unified Sports® organizes competitions with unified teams of athletes with intellectual impairments and partners. The athletes and partners train and play together. There are three unified sports models: competitive, player development and recreation. The roles of athletes with intellectual impairments and partners should be equal. The aim of the study was to compare the game performance of players with intellectual impairments and their partners in unified basketball.
Material and methods
Sixteen male teams competed in unified basketball in the Special Olympics Games. Each team consisted of 10 athletes, i.e. six players with intellectual impairments and four partners. These were divided into four ability levels (1–4). Twenty-five unified basketball games were observed, 42 variables were evaluated. The data was analyses with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Mann-Whitney U-test, with the strength of any differences indicated by effect size. The statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.
Results
The partners obtained better values than players in 31 game indicators. The two groups were differentiated by assists, defensive rebounds, completed passes, all passes, successful passes off a dribble and turnovers while dribbling, and all dribbling on all four levels.
Conclusions
The partners played a dominant role in the game. Coaches need to develop greater cohesion in the team, and the players require many training sessions together.