Before the starting lines of the 2026 San Diego Triathlon Challenge fueled by Toyota, athletes came together for a weekend of adaptive sport clinics built around something at the heart of CAF’s mission, the opportunity to try, learn, connect, and discover what might come next.

Saturday included the Össur + CAF Running and Mobility Clinic, open play adaptive pickleball, and an adaptive pool swim clinic. At each clinic, athletes with a range of abilities and experience levels had the opportunity to learn alongside experienced coaches, mentors, CAF Ambassadors, and other athletes.

For someone stepping into an adaptive sports clinic for the first time, the person next to them might become a training partner, a mentor, a friend, or simply the first person they have met who shares a similar experience. That sense of connection is part of what makes CAF clinics so meaningful. Sport brings people together, and from there, community has the opportunity to grow.

Moving Forward Together with Össur

At La Jolla Country Day School, over 70 individuals with lower limb loss or limb difference who use a prosthetic for mobility gathered for the Össur + CAF Running and Mobility Clinic, part of a clinic series that has expanded access to movement and adaptive sport across the U.S. and Canada.

For more than 30 years, CAF and Össur have worked together to help athletes with limb loss and limb difference access sports prosthetics, mobility instruction, expert coaching, and a community of support. Together, the organizations have provided more than 2,000 sports prosthetics, while the clinic series has hosted more than 90 clinics and reached more than 5,000 participants over the past decade.

At these free clinics, individuals have the opportunity to work alongside physical therapists, prosthetists, mobility specialists, Paralympians, Team Össur athletes, and CAF Ambassadors. Instruction focuses on skills that include running mechanics, balance, mobility, functional movement, and using a prosthesis confidently in sport and everyday activity.

Össur coaches and Paralympians, Jamie Brown and Eric McElvenney, CAF and Össur Ambassador Travis Ricks, and Paralympians Derek Loccident and Sarah Reinertsen were among those connected to the weekend. Both Jamie and Eric have also served as experienced adaptive running and mobility coaches within the clinic series, helping participants learn from athletes who understand firsthand what it means to navigate sport with limb difference.

For some participants, a clinic can be their first opportunity to properly learn how to use their running prosthesis. For others, it is a chance to refine a technique, ask questions, meet someone with a similar experience, or begin thinking about a new athletic goal.

And because the Össur + CAF Running and Mobility Clinics take place in communities across the country, that opportunity does not end when SDTC Weekend does. Athletes and families can continue connecting with CAF through clinics throughout the year and find opportunities to move alongside the adaptive sports community wherever the series travels.

Finding Community on the Pickleball Court

Just steps away, the tennis courts offered another way to get moving.

Open Play Pickleball welcomed athletes to La Jolla Country Day School, creating an accessible setting where participants and their families could pick up a paddle, play together, and get to know someone new.

Pickleball reflects the growing breadth of CAF’s adaptive sports community. CAF now supports athletes across more than 105 sports, from established Paralympic disciplines to recreational activities that give people new ways to be active.

And pickleball brings something especially valuable to that mix, connection.

Its social format makes the court a natural meeting place. A new athlete can play alongside someone with years of experience. Friends and families can participate together. Someone can arrive simply wanting to try a new activity and leave knowing another person in the CAF community.

Confidence and Connection in the Pool

Later in the day, the community moved to the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center for the Adaptive Pool Swim with guidance from Rudy Garcia-Tolson.

Few people understand the connection between CAF, swimming, and the power of adaptive sport quite like Rudy.

Rudy has been connected to CAF for decades, serving as a CAF Ambassador since 1998 before joining the organization’s staff in 2022. Today, Rudy works on CAF’s Programs Team with a focus on Southern California, allowing him to help create for other athletes many of the same kinds of opportunities that shaped his own journey.

That full-circle impact can also be seen in CAF Ambassador Roderick Sewell.

CAF began supporting Roderick when he was eight years old, providing grants for adaptive sports equipment, training, and competition expenses. CAF adaptive swim coaches Alan Voisard and Alison Terry helped teach Roderick to swim, beginning an athletic path that would eventually take him into elite Para swimming and triathlon. Today, he is a CAF Ambassador, mentor, and athlete who continues to give back to the community that helped create early opportunities in sport.

During SDTC Weekend, Roderick was once again part of that community, participating across the weekend and connecting with athletes during Saturday’s clinics.

Stories like those of Rudy and Roderick show why opportunities like an adaptive swim clinic matter.

A first experience in the pool may simply begin with learning a skill. But with access, coaching, encouragement, and people who believe in an athlete’s potential, that first experience can become the beginning of something much bigger.

Where Trying Something New Can Lead

Across running, mobility, pickleball, and swimming, Saturday demonstrated the role adaptive sports clinics play in CAF’s larger mission.

They give athletes a place to begin.

A place to ask questions without hesitation. A place to try a sport for the first time or develop skills in one they already love. A place for a young athlete to meet a Paralympian, for a family to connect with another family, or for someone who has never met another person with a similar disability to realize they are not alone.

That connection can change what someone believes is possible.

The athletes leading and mentoring others during SDTC Weekend are proof of how far those opportunities can reach. Many first came to CAF looking for equipment, coaching, access, or a chance to participate. Years later, they are returning as ambassadors, mentors, coaches, and leaders for the next athlete walking, rolling, running, or swimming into a CAF clinic.

That is what these clinics make possible.

Not just access to a sport, but access to people, community, and whatever comes next.