Winter Deaflympics 2019

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@Vojthas do they communicate using sign language, hand signals, etc.?

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I can’t seem to log onto the Totallympics Media website right now, so I’ll post my games preview here I guess.

 

2019 Winter Deaflympics Get Underway In Italy

 

The 2019 edition of the Winter Deaflympics got underway on December 12, 2019 in the Sondrio region of Northern Italy. The games were at one point not expected to take place following a governance crisis in the ICSD. Italy stepped in as a last minute host to save the pinnacle event of the winter deaf sports community. Italy is now proudly poised for the deaf world to descend upon their northern slopes for two weeks of international sport.

 

The games will feature 506 athletes (377 male/129 female) from 33 countries (Austria, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, People’s Republic of China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States of America, and Uzbekistan). The sports program features Alpine Skiing, Chess, Cross Country Skiing, Curling, Ice Hockey, and Snowboarding. Chess was the only new edition to the program after the 2015 edition, and will only be held as a demonstration sport (meaning that it will not count towards the final official medal total). The games officially run 10 days, but in reality last 11 days since curling began a day before the opening ceremony. 

The opening ceremony was a quaint affair when compared to the ceremonies of other multi-sports games this year. It featured a short parade of nations, a few speeches, and some low budget artistic performances. The ceremony began with the parade of nations, with the athletes entering by nation. Kazakhstan stood out as it’s flagbearer wore some of the countries traditional attire. There was great excitement from all of the athletes to be at the games. The last team to arrive in front of the stage were Italy, who received a nice cheer from the home crowd. Then came a plethora of speeches from different officials and people within Italian and deaf sport movement, including Deborah Compagnoni, which was followed by some sign language poetry presented by Fabio Giuranna. The mayor of Sondrio, Marco Scaramellini, then opened the games officially. A beautiful rendition of the Italian national anthem performed by Silvia Mezzanotte followed. The ceremony concluded with about a 45 minute artistic performance from various local groups. There was a light show/dance, a dance themed around breaking barriers, and a dance that featured performers with fire. The ceremony then came to a close with athletes going back to the hotel to prepare for the first real day of athletic action.

 

You can follow the games via Totallympics Media’s daily recaps, or the official website which can be found at the following URL: http://www.2019deaflympics.com. You can also Deaflympics2019’s Facebook page for daily updates and posts: https://www.facebook.com/2019WinterDeaflympicsItaly/. Livestreaming for some sports (and highlights for others) will be available at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOgOK5UzArt70QJeNcdAMZg. If you want to know more about international deaf sports, you can visit the following link: https://www.deaflympics.com. Enjoy the Games!

[Vojthas 949]

41 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

@Vojthas do they communicate using sign language, hand signals, etc.?

Yes, in fact some kind of sign language is used by every team - to show which stone you should hit, where your stone should stop, with how big force you should throw... However, they need to use it also while sweeping, which is a little bit harder, because that's where most teams are shouting and the sweepers are looking at the stone, so that they don't touch it with the broom. They somehow manage to concentrate on both - the stone and the skip, who is showing with his hand whether to sweep or not. And while discussing the things on the ice they use a sign language too - that's as good for them as their non-deaf rivals don't understand a lot   While it's good for us to speak as they don't hear what we are talking about But more a less we know each other's ideas because showing with the broom is natural for both - mute and non-mute curlers.

[Olympian1010 7,975]

Here’s a good video report on the opening ceremony (there is no audio since the Daily Moth is a US based news service that caters to the deaf community):

 

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Curling goes live in 5 minutes: https://youtu.be/poffumXiSZQ

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Alpine Skiing

 

Women’s Downhill

 

1. Elena Yakovishna  1:10.89

2. Tereza Kmochova  1:12.61

3. Rea Hraski  1:14.43

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Alpine Skiing

 

Men’s Downhill

 

1. Giacomo Pierbon  1:09.26

2. Pavel Kazakov  1:10.07

3. Lukas Kaefer  1:11.48

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@Vojthas Poland pulled off what can only be described as a miracle, and found themselves advancing to the semifinals tomorrow. Here’s a video of the moment they found out they advanced, and their celebration:

 

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 beats  18-0 in Ice Hockey

[Vojthas 949]

2 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

@Vojthas Poland pulled off what can only be described as a miracle, and found themselves advancing to the semifinals tomorrow. Here’s a video of the moment they found out they advanced, and their celebration:

 

That's the first time I'm not able to translate anything from our athletes to you I can only say, that last month they weren't in such a good mood Now I'm keeping my fingrers crossed for them, so that this weekend we could say to everybody during next leg of the league, that we are the ones who beat the Deaflympics ___ medalists (the empty place to fill in with a color).