Margaret Coutts

The vice-chairman of the organising committee, Mrs Margaret Coutts, said yesterday "for two weeks there will be more deaf people on the street than hearing people. My heart is filled with gold because of the very big turn out – there are more athletes here than at the previous World Games in America (in 1985)."

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.