In an article in the Guardian, Sport Editor Sean Ingle points out that Britain’s Deaf athletes – who will be competing in Sofia, Bulgaria from this Friday – are poorly funded in comparison to their Paralympic counterparts.
Extract:
Which brings us neatly to another global disabled event that starts in Sofia this week: the 22nd Deaflympics. Like the Paralympics, it is sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee and features athletes from more than 100 countries, many of whom compete at extraordinarily high levels. The deaf 100m world record, for instance, is 10.21sec – a time that is even better when you consider reactions are inevitably slower given races are started by lights, not pistols. The profoundly deaf swimmer Marcus Titus, who will be competing in Bulgaria, was talented enough to reach the final of the American 2012 Olympic trials for the 100m breaststroke. Had he touched the wall 0.79sec earlier he would have made the plane to London.
But there the similarities end. While Paralympians will rightly receive pages of coverage over the coming days, the Deaflympics will be grateful for a paragraph. And while British Paralympians receive funding and support from UK sport, the 60 members of Britain’s Deaflympics squad get nothing. They have had to beg and skimp and save to raise £3,200 each to compete in Sofia.
Read the full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2013/jul/21/deaflympics-olympic-games-paralympics
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Nele M.
July 22, 2013
Why are the Deaflympics and the Paralympics separated? I quite never understood it. For example the visually impaired are part of the Paralympics, Shouldn’t it be the Blindlympics for them? And why are the hearing impaired people not part of the Paralympics?
Linda Richards
July 22, 2013
Wishing Team GB well but I understood that some funding had been received and each athlete only had to raise half the amount quoted. Further there are dsicrepancies in the level of support across the sports – the LTA have fully funded the Deaf tennis players and so on. Clarion, an interpreting agency, announced immediately after the Taipei Games four years ago, that they would sponsor Team GB. I dont know what happened there. Whatever, it is disgraceful that Team GB is not getting the same level of support as their hearing and disabled counterparts. Congratulations to Melanie Jewett for bringing home Team GB’s first medal of the Sofia Games – a bronze from the marathron which for logistical reasons had to be held in Germany rather than Bulgaria.
BazzaDeaf
July 22, 2013
I`m total at loss with UK Sport. When the British Council do fund Deaf Artists to perform abroad along with all UK Artists in equality. Surely ….. surely …. what can I say?
Hartmut
July 22, 2013
Why not in Paralympics? Why also not merge Special Olympics and Paralympics? You will realize that this cannot be done.
Jerald Jordan, the former president of CISS (now IFDS), was approached by Mr. Samranch, IOC President, about it. Samaranch visited one Deaflympics and was persuaded that it makes the organization of Paralympics too unwieldy and twice or thrice more expensive, if deaf athletes were included. Mobility disabled, including. blind people would not receive medals, as deaf athletes would sweep them. Sign language Interpreters would be required, and it becomes highly doubtful, if sufficient interpreters could be obtained locally for a local fee. Imported interpreters will be very expensive as their travel and accommodations need to be funded too. The events are not modified for deafness and are run in the same way as at the Olympics.
Deaflympics are much older than Paralympics and Special Olympics. They are held every four years since 1924, organized by the respective national Deaf Sports Associations. Yet ironically, they have been receiving only scant funding. Only athletes from former European Communist countries were fully funded from their countries. Most athletes are either self funded or funded by the respective Deaf organizations or from Deaf individuals, who are poorer on the average than hearing people.
This shows economic and financial audism toward deaf people. Funds for a hearing aid and cochlear implant get collected fast from the public. Not so for Deaf athletic and cultural events.
Deaf officials and coaches in most cases were paid only for the travel and accommodation expenses. Their times are often donated.