Report from Sports Director

Dear sport fans of Deaflympics,

A warm welcome to my report. I like to report about my inspection visit for the Winter Deaflympics in Salt Lake City, Utah USA

  1. Salt Lake City is an amiable town, it gave me a warm welcome and it is very friendly to the deaf society.
  2. Little America Hotel is a good choice for our athletes and visitors. All restaurants and shops are nearby. Click here for video footage of Little America Hotel.
  3. Technical Director (TD) of Winter Deaflympics sports are Colin Macdonald (Alpine Skiing, Great Britain), Marco Galmarini (Snowboard, Switzerland), Knut Kjøde (Cross Country Skiing, Norway) and Chris Bradley (Ice Hockey, Canada). We need to find a technical director for curling, Provisional Director for the moment is Josef Willmerdinger (Sports Director). We all agree that our sports in the Winter Deaflympics 2007 in Salt Lake City should achieve the same high level as the Olympic Games. The Technical Directors are responsible for all technical related questions.
  4. The location for Alpine Skiing will be at Park City Mountain Resort. The distance between Salt Lake City and Park City Mountain Resort is 51 km. Click here for video footage of Alpine Skiing.
  5. The Snowboard location is the same as the Alpine Skiing location. Click here for video footage of Snowboard.
  6. The location for Cross Country Skiing is at Soldier Hollow (Wasatch Mountain State Park, Midway, Utah). The Distance to Salt Lake City is 75 km. It is a really wonderful location – first class. Click here for video footage of Cross Country Skiing.
  7. Location for Ice Hockey is Steiner Ice Sheets-Sports Complex. The Distance from Little America Hotel to Steiner Ice Sheets-Sport complex is 5 km (25 minute walk on foot). Click here for video footage of Ice Hockey and Curling.
  8. The Curling location is the same as the Ice Hockey location. Curling will be a demonstration sport. We hope that this sport will become an official sport. 6 men and 4 women teams are registered. We are pleased with the numbers of teams signed up, what a wonderful surprise. Curling is a fabulous sport.
  9. For the Games Organizing Committee (GOC) chairman, Dwight Benedict plans to give Winter Deaflympics the best organisation as possible and make them successful like the previous Winter Deaflympics in Sundsvall 2003. We will be looking forward to the surprises, given to us by GOC. I have the feeling that we will have a successful game.
  10. Please click the links below for more information.

Good news about world championships. This year we will have three Deaf World Championships: Cycling, Golf and Orienteering.

From 12-20 August, there will be the 1st Deaf World Championship Orienteering in Veszprém, Hungary. I invite you to come to Hungary and I wish all sportsmen and sportswomen to do well and to succeed. Recently, our Technical Director of Orienteering, Marek Mir-Mackiewicz, did a site inspection and was very satisfied with their preparations and is pleased to inform us that 15 countries have pre-registered for this event.

Dear sport fans, if you have any suggestions for improvement, for example in terms of sports, ranking et cetera please let me know. I am asking for new ideas and proposals.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Josef Willmerdinger
Sports Director