Special Olympics Champ Loretta Claiborne's Life Is Subject Of TV Movie

Jet, March 22, 1999

The inspiring story of Special Olympics star Loretta Claiborne's life is the stuff that movies are made of, and Walt Disney is working on an ABC-TV movie based on her life.

The long distance runner has paved the way for athletes with mental retardation for nearly 30 years.

As an infant, she was diagnosed as mentally retarded and legally blind. She learned to walk at age 4. Despite Claiborne's disabilities, her mother refused to institutionalize her.

As an adolescent, she began running in York, PA. She joined the Special Olympics in the early 1970s and has completed 25 marathons, finishing with the fastest 25 women runners in the Pittsburgh Marathon and finishing twice with the top 100 women in the Boston Marathon.

Claiborne was 1998 Special Olympics Female Athlete of the Year and won a gold medal at the first Special Olympics half-marathon in 1991.

She is the first person with mental retardation to serve on the Special Olympics International Board of Directors, and among the first people with mental retardation to receive an honorary doctorate (Quinnipiac College in Hamden, CT).