Big sporting event on shoestring budget

Many people have come to the party to make possible the holding of the sixteenth World Deaf Games in Christchurch for the next 10 days.

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.

At present Christchurch is playing host to about 1400 competitors, representing 29 countries, the same number as that which took part in the last Deaf Games, in Los Angeles, in 1985. Iran, Turkey, Israel, China and Bangladesh are among the new countries participating, and the organisers are especially pleased that Russia will be attending, after having boycotted the Los Angeles events.

“It is a great honour for Christchurch to be awarded these Games, as this is the first time they have been held in the Southern Hemisphere,” said the executive officer for the World Games for the Deaf, Norman McPherson, of Christchurch.

Sixty-five countries around the world are affiliated to the world deaf organisation.

Combined membership of 85,000 New Zealand has eight deaf sports clubs with a total of 500 members.

There will be 12 sports in the Games: cycling, wrestling, tennis, shooting, swimming, athletics, badminton, table tennis, football, basketball, volleyball and handball. Handball will be played competitively for the first time in New Zealand.

New Zealand’s own team, sponsored by National Provident, comprises 97 athletes. There are hopes of high achievement among them. John Ooteman, of Feilding, has twice won gold for New Zealand in cycling and is a leading hope. Penny Went, of Auckland, should do well in badminton, and Christchurch schoolboy, Frank Watson, has medal prospects in athletics.

The Christchurch City Council is supplying the venue free, the Lotteries Board has made a generous grant, the Hillary Commission is contributing, while overseas assistance has come from the International Olympic Committee and the International Fund for Sport for the Disabled.

The Government and the city council have underwritten a shortfall in the budget.

Outside sponsorship, much of the fund raising has been done by volunteers selling chocolates, raffle tickets, running charity evenings and a golf tournament.

Other volunteers making for less strain on the budget are Lions, Kiwis and Rotary groups, interpreters, sports officials, army officers and adult deaf organised by volunteer directors.

The first Deaf Games were held in Brussels in 1926, but New Zealand did not participate until 1953, two years before the country was accepted as a member of the C.I.S.S., the international deaf sports organisation.

The first Kiwi competitor was a nuggety wrestler who, in the previous year, had won the Allan Cup for the most scientific competitor at the New Zealand senior championships.

Eight years later, in Helsinki, McRae won New Zealand’s first medals at the World Deaf Games, with a silver in freestyle wrestling and a bronze in the Greco-Roman style.

McRae had a much bigger role to play in Deaf Games deliberations. In 1983 he joined Mrs Margaret Coutts, of Christchurch, to form New Zealand’s delegation to the games congress at Madonna di Campiglio, in Italy. McRae had spent much time learning Gestuno, the international sign language, and Mrs Coutts had researched many areas in support of the application. As a consequence, New Zealand beat Australia by a big margin in the vote to decide the host country.

Photo caption: Members of the New Zealand men’s volleyball team practising at the Van Asch College gymnasium in Sumner. Peter Berry, of Christchurch, is serving, with Roger Strong, of Otago, at left. Seven men’s and four women’s teams will contest the volleyball at the World Deaf Games.