Two athletes and a coach from Northern Kentucky have been nominated to represent the Commonwealth and the nation as part of the Special Olympics USA Team that will compete at the 2027 Special Olympics World Games October 16-24 in Santiago, Chile.
Athletes Maddie Brinkman of Union and Chris Revay of Ft. Mitchell have been nominated to compete at the Games, Brinkman in swimming and Revay in golf. Debbie Ogden of Fort Wright will serve as the head swimming coach for the Special Olympics USA delegation.
Brinkman, 26, is looking to make her first trip to the World Games. She has competed at the last two USA Games, winning six medals overall. At the 2026 USA Games in Minneapolis, she was part of the gold medal-winning Kentucky 4×50-yard medley relay team. She added an individual silver medal in the 100-yard backstroke and added individual bronze in the 100-yard freestyle. In Orlando in 2022, Brinkman grabbed individual gold in the 50-yard backstroke and team gold in the 4×50-yard medley relay. She also earned a bronze in the 50-yard freestyle. She has been a Special Olympics athlete for 10 years, competing in track, softball and bowling in addition to swimming. Brinkman is also an Athlete Ambassador for the program. She works for Special Olympics Kentucky Year-Round Partner Texas Roadhouse in Florence.
Revay, 50, Is coming off a silver medal performance in the 9-hole individual stroke play event at the 2026 USA Games. He is working on his third World Games appearance. He won a silver medal in golf at the 1995 World Games in Connecticut and was part of Kentucky’s gold medal-winning soccer team at the 1999 Games in North Carolina. He also competed at the first USA Games in Ames, Iowa, in 2006 where he placed fourth in his flight in golf. Additionally, Revay has competed in several Special Olympics National Invitational Golf Tournaments. At the 2000 National Invitational Tournament, he became the first Special Olympics golfer to record a hole in one in an official Special Olympics competition.
Revay has been a Special Olympics athlete for 32 years. He has competed in nearly every sport that the program offers. On the track, Revay was a regular in the pentathlon – a grueling one-day, five-event competition – for many years and won it several times. He works at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Edgewood.
Ogden will be making her second consecutive trip to the World Games. She was an assistant swimming coach for the Special Olympics USA delegation at the 2023 Games in Berlin. The 2022 Special Olympics Kentucky Coach of the Year, Ogden has also served as the Team Kentucky head swimming coach at the last three USA Games. In that time, her athletes have won 22 medals including seven golds. She has been a Special Olympics coach for more than 20 years but has been working with individuals with intellectual disabilities for more than 40 years. She heads the Northern Kentucky Dolphins Special Olympics swimming program and serves on the Special Olympics Kentucky Swimming Sport Development Committee.
In addition to Special Olympics coaching, Ogden has also coached the Ludlow/Bromley swim and dive team, the St. Agnes School track and field team and the St. Agnes School fifth grade volleyball team in Fort Wright. She is the Senior Executive Assistant in the Development Department at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati.
Three other Kentuckians are also hoping to be part of the Special Olympics USA delegation that goes to Santiago. Taylorsville swimmer Carson Chaney, and Chris Tutsch and Mark Buerger from Lexington have also been nominated for the Games. Tutsch would serve as Chris Revay’s caddie in Satiago. Buerger would serve as part of the Special Olympics USA communications staff at the Games.
Kentucky’s nominees will head to Special Olympics USA Team Trials, which will be held Sept. 17-20 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Team Trials are designed to help athletes and coaches get to know one another and help athletes get used to working with a coach who may be different from their home coach. The Trials consist of sports practice, team building events and other special events.
No nominee is officially part of the Special Olympics USA delegation until the team is announced, which will happen in mid-October.
The 2027 Special Olympics World Games Santiago will be the first Special Olympics World Games ever held in the southern hemisphere. The Games are expected to bring together more than 6,000 athletes from 170 countries to compete. This will be the sixth time that the World Summer Games have been held outside the United States. The others were in 2003 in Dublin; 2007 in Shanghai; 2011 in Athens, Greece, 2019 in Abu Dhabi and 2023 in Berlin. The 2015 Games were held in Los Angeles.
For more information about the athletes and coaches nominated for the Special Olympics USA team for the 2027 Special Olympics World Summer Games or about how you can help support their trip, contact Special Olympics Kentucky Vice President of Communications and External Relations Mark Buerger at 800-633-7403 or via e-mail at mbuerger@soky.org.
Special Olympics Kentucky