Three Athletes, Caddie, Coach and Staff Person Nominated to Special Olympics USA Team for Chile Games

Special Olympics Kentucky is forwarding the nomination of three athletes, one caddie, a coach and one staff member for consideration for the Special Olympics USA team that will take part in the 2027 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Santiago, Chile. Golfer Chris Revay of Fort Mitchell and swimmers Maddie Brinkman of Union and Carson Chaney of Taylorsville are the three athletes nominated to compete in Santiago. Chris Tutsch of Lexington has been nominated to caddie for Revay at the Games. Debbie Ogden of Fort Wright has been nominated as the Special Olympics USA head swimming coach. And Mark Buerger of Lexington has been nominated to be part of the Special Olympics USA Communications Team in Chile.

Revay is the only one of the athletes who has ever participated in a World Games prior to this nomination. Revay won a silver medal in golf at the 1995 World Games in Connecticut. He also won a soccer gold medal with a Northern Kentucky-based team at the 1999 Games in North Carolina. In addition to his World Games experience, Revay has also been to two USA Games, including the 2026 Games in June in Minneapolis where he won a silver medal in the 9-hole Individual Stroke Play event. At the original USA Games in 2026 in Ames, Iowa, he placed fourth in his flight in the 18-Hole Individual Stroke Play Competition.  Revay has been a Special Olympics athlete for 31 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 is a Special Olympics Kentucky Athlete Ambassador and works at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Edgewood.

Brinkman has been a Special Olympics athlete for 9 years, competing in track, softball and bowling in addition to swimming. She is a two-time USA Games participant, swimming in Minneapolis in 2026 as well as Orlando in 2022. In this year’s Games she won three medals, including a silver in the 100-yard backstroke and a bronze in the 100-yard freestyle. In 2022 she won an individual gold medal in the 50-yard backstroke and a team gold in the 4×50-yard medley relay. She also grabbed an individual bronze medal in Orlando in the 50-yard freestyle. She is also an Athlete Ambassador, and she works for Special Olympics Kentucky Year-Round Partner Texas Roadhouse.

Chaney and Brinkman teamed together at the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games, each swimming a leg of the 4×50-yard Medley Relay team that claimed a gold medal in Minneapolis. Chaney anchored that relay team swimming huge freestyle legs in come-from-behind victories in the final as well as the prelim. In addition to the relay gold, Chaney grabbed an individual silver medal in the 100-yard backstroke and was fifth in his heat of the 100-yard freestyle. Chaney has been involved in Special Olympics for six years. He got his start in the program as a swimmer but has also competed in bowling and track and field. When he was a student at Spencer County High School, he participated in KHSAA Unified track and field, earning three gold medals, a silver and a bronze at the state track and field meet.

Tutsch will caddie for Revay in Santiago in a reprise of her role with Team Kentucky at the 2026 USA Games in Minneapolis. She has been involved in Special Olympics for 30 years in two states, serving as a golf and bowling Unified partner. She has also coached several sports. This will be her first time participating in the World Games, but she went to the 2023 World Games in Berlin to cheer on Kentucky golfer Wake Mullins.

Ogden will be making her second consecutive trip to the World Summer Games. She also served as the Special Olympics USA Head Swimming Coach in 2023 in Berlin. In addition to her prior World Games Experience, Ogden has served as Team Kentucky’s swimming coach at the past three USA Games. In that time her swimmers have won 22 medals, including seven golds. Team Kentucky has won back-to-back gold medals in the 4×50-yard Medley Relay.

The 2022 Special Olympics Kentucky Coach of the Year, Ogden has been a Special Olympics coach for 20 years but has been working with individuals with intellectual disabilities for nearly 40 years. She heads the Northern Kentucky Dolphins Special Olympics swimming program and serves on the SOKY 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.

Buerger has been a member of the Special Olympics Kentucky staff for 25 years and currently serves as the Vice President of Communications and External Relations. While he has been to all six USA Games and managed communications efforts for Kentucky athletes participating in the World Games since the 2003 Games in Dublin, Ireland this will be the first time that he will be on site for the World Games.

Chris Tutsch

Debbie Ogden

Mark Buerger

All participants are considered nominated for the Special Olympics USA team pending Team Training Camp, which will be held September 17-20 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Upon successful completion of Training Camp, they will be official members of the World Games team.

The 2027 Special Olympics World Summer Games will be held October 16-24, in Santiago, Chile, making them the first Special Olympics World Games to be held in the southern hemisphere. The Games are expected to bring together more than 6,000 athletes from 170 countries to compete in 22 sports.

For more information about Kentucky’s participation in the 2027 World Games, contact Mark Buerger at 502-695-8222 or mbuerger@soky.org.