The 24th Summer Deaflympics take place from May 1 to 15 in Caxias Do Sul (South Brazil). These multisport games for the deaf, which began in 1924 in Paris, should bring together 20 disciplines and more than 3,000 athletes.
In 2024, the sports world will celebrate the return of the Olympic Games to Paris. In 1924, the French capital hosted the Olympic Games for the second time. What is less known, however, is that the City of Light was also the scene, a month later, of another multi-sport event: the “International Games for the Deaf”.
Games invented by a Frenchman
The beginnings of these future Deaflympics [1] – contraction of “Deaf”, “Deaf” in English, and “Olympics”, “Olympiques” – had been timid, with 9 European countries and 7 disciplines. But these 1924 Games had marked a turning point: they were the first sporting event for people with special needs “, underlines the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (CISS). A CISS founded in 1924 by Eugène Rubens-Alcais, patron of the “Sports Federation of the Deaf-Mutes of France”.
The CISS then put forward a credo: Per Ludos Aequalitas, “equality through sport”. Gradually, the Deaflympics opened up to winter sports (from 1949 in Seefeld, Austria), to other continents… In 1965, the Deaflympics took place in the United States. In 1975, South Africa became the first African country to join the ISSC. In 2017, during the 23rd edition, 86 delegations and nearly 2,900 athletes gathered in Samsun in Turkey.
Even today, the Deaflympics still take place outside the Paralympic Games, despite the CISS’ membership of the International Paralympic Committee from 1986 to 1995.
Senegalese footballers firmly expected
For the 24th, postponed from 2021 to 2022 because of the Covid, the CISS hopes to see nearly 4,500 participants in Caixas Do Sul, near Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil. From May 1 to 15, twenty disciplines are on the program, including athletics, football, judo and sport shooting.
Will the 25 African countries out of the 116 affiliated to the CISS be well represented at the Deaflympics 2021? In 2013 and 2017, a dozen African nations were present. Ninth with 16 medals each time, Kenya had pulled out of the game thanks – unsurprisingly – to athletics. Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Mali had made their first appearances during this edition.
This time, delegations like those from Senegal are eagerly awaited in Brazil. The Lions, reigning African champions, received the flag from Sports Minister Matar Ba. They hope to bring him a medal in return.
[1] Appellation adopted in 2001.