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To most of the athletes attending the sixteenth World Games for the Deaf the social side of the event is as important as the competition. For the 10 days of the games the athletes and deaf officials are living in their ideal world – using their form of communication.

New Zealand's first television programme for deaf people will be broadcast nationally from Christchurch next Saturday.

Ross Freemantle, of New Zealand, works his way into the Finnish goal area in a basketball match in the World Games for the Deaf at Cowles Stadium yesterday. The New Zealand team led until the last two seconds, but lost, 78-79.

How deaf is deaf? To be eligible as a "deaf" competitor a person must have a 56 percent hearing loss in their best ear. Every country in the games has to check all its competitors before they attend but a back up is brought in to prevent cheating.

Three officials of the World Games for the Deaf pause to toast the success of the venture, as teams from more than 30 countries arrive in Christchurch.

The Games will be about the same size as the 1974 sporting extravaganza in Christchurch, the Commonwealth Games. Yet it has been orchestrated on a budget of $700,000 – about one-third of the cost of the opening ceremony planned for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.

Kiwis were the friendliest people on Earth, the president of the International Silent Sport, Mr Jerald Jordan, told the opening of the sixteenth World Games for the Deaf on Saturday.