“You are who you are. But you can be the best version of yourself.”

She is a jack of all trades. If that word hadn’t gone somewhat out of fashion, one would have been happy to superimpose it on Loretta Claiborne. Hardly any other Special Olympics athlete has traveled further than she has seen. The 69-year-old, an American from Pennsylvania, has been in Nagano and Dublin – and in the White House. Former US President Barack Obama received her there. And now in Berlin. In a televised interview with a broadcaster from her home country, Claiborne recently said in front of the Brandenburg Gate: “I will give it my all, whether I win or lose the match.”

Loretta Claiborne has been a Special Olympics star for what feels like forever: She’s been competing in competitions for people with learning disabilities since she was 17 years old in 1970. The World Games in Berlin are her seventh.

Claiborne has won a number of medals and other honors in her lifetime, in many different sports from athletics, bowling to figure skating. She also holds a black belt in karate. At the Summer Games in Berlin, tennis is playing the sport for the first time and after a 14-year break from the Special Olympics.

Claiborne knits hats for premature babies

She often loses against opponents who are usually half her age (or even younger). But that shouldn’t bother her, in an interview with USA Today she once said, “You are who you are. But you can be the best version of yourself.” And if that includes playing tennis when you were nearly 70 years old in one of the biggest multiple events sports in the world, it is true.

Claiborne’s superior discipline, which brought her into the public eye, still applies. She has completed a number of marathons, including the prestigious competition in Boston. In no way was she destined to run at this level. Claiborne was born with clubfoot, as well as visual and cognitive impairments. She said she could not walk or speak until she was four years old.

Speak up, find your voice. These are important motives when dealing with Loretta Claiborne. And you have to remember: Her trajectory—like that of many Special Olympics athletes—is a trajectory with greater falls and greater individual strength. Like many famous American athletes, the 69-year-old gives speeches, including at schools and universities. The player keeps talking about people who come up to her and tell her how encouraged they are by Claiborne’s work.

When she’s not exercising, she’s crocheting. Not just any clothes. No, hats for premature babies. and lumbar prostheses for women who have had breast cancer surgery. In her activism, she has gone above and beyond, advocating for women, especially black women.

“God is my strength, Special Olympics is my happiness,” My strength is in God, My joy is in Special Olympics: Claiborne lives by this saying and always has a little cross with him on which he reads the words. And the athlete wants to remain faithful to the Games, even if she turns 70 in August and probably also thinks: that’s it. It has to go on, over and over again. “The Games in Berlin are not the end for me,” Claiborne told ZDF on Wednesday.