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Auckland welterweight wrestler John McRae captured a silver medal and a bronze at the Olympic Games for the Deaf in Helsinki.

The team of 17 deaf athletes are farewelled at Kelston School for the Deaf, with official team photos, before leaving for the 10th International Games for the Deaf at Washington D.C.

Kath Smith, selected as chaperon for the first official team to represent New Zealand at the International Games for the Deaf, is being fitted with the ceremonial team outfit.

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.

Although many people will not have heard of the World Games for the Deaf, New Zealand's involvement with them spans 40 years. The first information about the games reached New Zealand in 1949 and the New Zealand Amateur Sports Association was formed.

Olympic wrestling nominee Robert Algie is battling cancer in Palmerston North Hospital.

The starting equipment to be used at the Queen Elizabeth II complex is far more sophisticated. It uses a traffic-light type devised by a Christchurch man, Mr Ted Gilliver.

About 100 interpreters have been trained in Christchurch over the last year. The classes were organised by the hearing people but the deaf were the teachers. It is only the second time that New Zealand sign language has been taught in this country.

New Zealand gained its second medal when Michael Lynch came in third in the men's 100m butterfly last night. If it had not been for a misjudged approach to the electronic touch pad, Lynch would probably would have earned a silver medal.

A summary of each sport featuring in the upcoming VXI World Deaf Games in Christchurch – soccer, table tennis, volleyball, basketball, handball, track and field, wrestling, cycling, swimming and badminton, with New Zealand contenders for medals.

One of the crowd favourites at the sixteenth World Games for the Deaf has been the blind and deaf wrestler from Canada, Pier Morten. Although being disadvantaged by not being able to see his opponents, Morten fights tenaciously and reacts speedily to holds applied on him.

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)."

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.

We want a place where deaf people, young and old, can meet together. This is the dream of the Auckland Deaf Adult Society, described by the secretary, Jack Pollard. It is a dream which today is beginning to take real shape.