Report from Vice President - World Sports

2009 ICSD Family
The ICSD Family in Taipei - 2009
2009-2013 New ICSD Board Members
New ICSD EC 2009-2013
The 21st Summer Deaflympics in Taipei, Chinese Taipei was terrific. We can proudly say, that we were all involved at the Summer Deaflympics 2009 in Taipei. The events starting from the Opening Ceremony, to the competitions until the Closing Ceremony were exceedingly beautiful and simply phenomenal. I believe that this was an event of this century! In my opinion, Taipei 2009 was equal to the Olympics in Beijing 2008.

My personal thanks especially go to our past ICSD President Dr. Donalda K. Ammons, ICSD Executive Director Tiffany Granfors and to ICSD Technical Operations Manager Wayne Langbein. They all are the key people to ensure that the Deaflympics is to be carried out successfully in Taipei. Of course I respect Mr. Emile Sheng, CEO, his Organizing Committee of Taipei 2009, and the city of Taipei. They administrated the Games so great, that will remain unforgettable to us.

Besides the thank you's, I again want to thank the past President Donalda Ammons with all my heart. She is a great reformer and has a brilliant personality which she always has shown. She has a huge skill for leadership, not only that, she values the teamwork. I spent four wonderful, interesting and precious years gaining experience behind her as a Sports Director.

Of course I want to introduce our 15 Summer Technical Directors, four Assistants and 2 Consultants, and I want to thank them very much. Everyone of them has a wonderful heart and they were all the time ready to give their best. The Teamwork here was also brilliant.

The Technical Directors:
Barbara Sondergaard – Athletics
Martin Bogart – Badminton
Yaakov Keren – Basketball
John Knetzger – Volleyball/Beach Volleyball
Bobby Skedsmo – Cycling Road
Christof Niklaus – Football
Mario Torcolini – Handball
Damien Antoine – Judo
Marek Mir-Makiewicz – Orienteering
Mac Adam – Shooting
Reed Gerswind – Swimming/Water Polo
Zsolt Nyrio – Table Tennis
Jung-bae Park – Taekwondo
Tobias Burz – Tennis
Mehmet Bilgili – Wrestling Freestyle and Greco Roman

The Assistants of Technical Directors:
Jürgen Endress – Basketball
Ido Rosnik – Beach Volleyball
Tony Clews – Football
Cindy-Lu Bailey – Swimming

The Consultants:
Kazimierz Chodak – Bowling
Wen-Tsai Wang – Karate

Now we have a new ICSD Executive Committee. Craig Crowley (ICSD President), Josef Willmerdinger (Vice President - World Sports), David Lanesman (Vice President - World Youth Sports), Vanessa Migliosi (Member at Large). I wish that every Deaf Sport Federation will support us actively and dynamically. We want to give our best, but we only can achieve this, when we are a unity. Cheer up for a good future for our Deaf Sport!

In the Summer Deaflympics in Taipei, many athletes broke World Records and Games Records with great effort, which is very amazing. The Niveau of the Deaf Sport has improved a lot since the last Games. We can be proud of those achievements of deaf athletes! Our Deaf Sport gets more and more to a high – performance – status. To further, detailed information about the Records, see the schedule below.

New Game Records

 MenWomenTotal
Athletics

10

20

30

Shooting

9

8

17

Swimming

23

25

48

Total

42

53

95

New Deaf World Records

Athletics

4

6

10

Shooting

2

7

9

Swimming

15

21

36

Total

21

34

55


YearLocationGames RecordsWorld Records
2001Rome

50

14

2005Melbourne

41

21

2009Taipei

95

55

The following sports, Handball and Water Polo have been deleted from the 2013 Summer Deaflympics program. The decision was made during the ICSD executive committee meeting on 1 September. For three consecutive Summer Deaflympics, team participation in both sports has diminished. According to the Deaflympics regulations, at least twelve (12) federations for Summer Deaflympics and six (6) federations for Winter Deaflympics, from at least two regional confederations, must offer handball and water polo as part of their sports program. Since this has not been the case, these two sports have been eliminated from the Deaflympics. However, these sports can still be offered at the regional and world championships.

My Future vision for Deaflympics/ICSD is: Our World Deaf Sport must grow. World Championships must be improved to a perfect standard, also our WC Regulation must be reformed. We want to have clean World Championships with high quality. World Championship Regulation is to be followed. I think we all wish the very best World Championships, so help us to accomplish the mission of high quality World Championships!

We have many World Championships which are still open, e.g. Handball, Orienteering and Cross County (Athletics). We have to arrange World Championships in year 2010 for each of those kinds of Sports. We ask the Countries of Deaf Sport Federations to host the World Championships. We are very grateful for any interests. Every Deaf Sports Federation which would like to host a World Championship shall please make contact with the ICSD office.

To all of our Technical Directors: Please get in contact with Deaf Sports Federations for World Championships which are still open. You can find more information for these World Championships in www.deaflympics.com/games/calendar.asp

Thank you for the support.

Josef WILLMERDINGER
ICSD Vice President - World Sports

By Josef Willmerdinger