Fresh off the success of the 2025 World Winter Games in March in Turin, Italy, Special Olympics has announced their new big international event — a first-ever Unified 3x3 Basketball World Cup. The tournament is scheduled for December 2025, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Unified sports are a pure distillation of inclusion — athletes with and without intellectual disabilities competing together. In the words of Special Olympics: "It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding.
"In Unified Sports, teams are made up of people of similar age and ability. That makes practices more fun and games more challenging and exciting for all. Having sport in common is just one more way that preconceptions and false ideas are swept away."
The tournament will feature roughly 200 athletes, with 40 countries represented and 20 teams each on the men's and women's sides. It's also not the first time Special Olympics will bring an event to Puerto Rico, whose local chapter currently supports more than 3,000 athletes.
“We previously held a Special Olympics World Swimming Championship in San Juan in2012, and this new challenge of the 3x3 World Cup will open the doors for the support of the people and the world in general," said Carlos Miró, athlete leader for Special Olympics Puerto Rico, per a press release. “This event will be wonderful for our country and for our local program. We will grow with the celebration of this Unified 3x3 Basketball World Cup. People will support it; Holding an event like this will greatly help us promote inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities.”
The Special Olympics Unified 3x3 Basketball World Cup is basketball for all
Unified 3x3 basketball was first played in 2017, with the rules officially codified in 2020 in the Special Olympics Sports Rules. It was first included in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin in 2023.
“Within Special Olympics, 3x3 is experiencing rapid growth," said Lou Lauria of Special Olympics International in a press release, and this event is part of a larger strategy to increase participation in 3x3 basketball across the Special Olympics movement and provide more quality competition opportunities to the athletes and their Unified partners.”
For more information on the 2025 Special Olympics 3x3 Unified Basketball World Cup, visit www.specialolympics.org.
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