From Bluffton to Berlin. This Lowcountry native wins gold at Special Olympics
On Thursday, Bluffton resident Charlotte Lewis, 31, pushed her kayak off the banks of the river Dahme instead of her usual Hilton Head Island Shelter Cove Harbour and Marina dock.
With cheering crowd in place of lapping marsh, Lewis’ yellow boat passed the competitors for her to win gold in her very first race at the world level, the women’s 200-meter kayaking race at the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin, Germany. Saturday she competed in the women’s 500-meter and placed fourth.
Lewis said she was already a Special Olympic bowler, but in 2021 took up kayaking for the first time. Despite being a relative newcomer to the sport, Lewis said her work ethic has already paid off.
“I have autism and a learning disability,” Lewis said. “I have to work harder to learn new things than most people. It has limited my educational opportunities, but I have learned that I can do whatever I put my mind to if I work hard enough.”
There are 7,00 athletes and Unified partners from about 190 countries at this year’s Special Olympics World Games competing in 26 sports, according to their website. Unified partners are people without intellectual disabilities who train and compete as a teammate alongside Special Olympics athletes.
To be eligible to participate in the Special Olympics, an agency or professional must identify the athletes as having “intellectual disabilities, cognitive delays as measured by formal assessment, or significant learning or vocational problems due to cognitive delay that require or have required specially designed instruction,” according to their website.
Lewis, who works at a local Publix, began competing in events in 2015, when a coworker invited her to the bowling league.
Lewis is one of two athletes from South Carolina who qualified for the games. To do she competed locally, statewide and nationally, and then went through an interview process. Josh Powell of Greenville is competing for bowling.
“There was a lot of going to the gym and working out, and a lot of time spent on the water practicing with my coach, Patty Robbins,” Lewis said of her preparation before the gold-medal race.
Lewis started kayaking through SOAR Special Recreation of the Lowcountry, which oversees Special Olympic programs in the area. They run programs for 25 kayakers on Hilton Head and 15 in Beaufort, according to Director of Youth Programs Morgan Smith.
Smith traveled with Lewis and her parents to Germany and said the positive energy is the best part of the Special Olympics, which take place every year.
“Athletes get to talk to each other, despite the language barriers, they just don’t care,” she said. “There’s very few opportunities where you get to ... be around this many people have this attitude towards life.”
To reach the award podium, Lewis worked with Robbins, starting in March. Robbins has been a kayak-guide trainer for Outside Hilton Head, an outdoor outfitter since she moved to the island a year and a half ago.
“She’s just so coach-able,” Robbins said. Weather permitting, they practiced two or three times a week, incorporating core and cross-fit, which Lewis balanced with her full-time job at the Publix in Bluffton.
“My main goal was teaching her good seat position and good paddle paddling stroke to make her as efficient as she could be,” Robbins said. “Efficiency equals effectiveness and hopefully that equals speed.”
She has competed with Special Olympics for the past four years in basketball, bocce, equestrian and kayaking.
On top of her gold medal win, Lewis said the international experience the Special Olympics offers has let her see famous historical sites like the former site of the Berlin Wall and dive into the cultures of her fellow Olympians, who often trade pins with their home countries on them.
“(My favorite part of the experience has been) making new friends and having a community that is always there to support you and give you help,” Lewis said.
