Deaflympics 2013: Watch the BSLBT video profiles of Britain's Deaf athletes

BSLBT - BSL zone

The 2013 Deaflympics in Sofia, Bulgaria start next week

Click here to watch the BSLBT video profiles of Britain's Deaf athletes

Deaflympics Sofia 2013

Follow the up-dates on http://www.deaflympics.com/

The countdown is on for Deaflympics Sofia 2013 which is taking place 26 Jul 2013 - 4 Aug 2013

The Summer deaflympics sports will include:

Athletics

Badminton

Basketball

Beach Volleyball

Bowling

Cycling Road

Diving

Football

Futsal

Handball

Judo

Karate

Mountain Bike

Orienteering

Shooting

Swimming

Table Tennis

Taekwondo

Tennis

Volleyball

Water Polo

Wrestling Freestyle

Wrestling Greco-Roman

Wushu

Check out what the PDDCS are doing this summer term too

UK Deaf Sport secure £125k for Deaflympics

More from UK Deaf Sport today and this time its not about history - its about the future. Sport England have revealed that they are funding UK Deaf Sport (UKDS) to the tune of £125,000 to support athletes going to the Deaflympic Games in Sofia next year.

Following on from the success of the Paralympians and Olympians this year, the news gives deaf athletes some feeling of being recognised by the UK sporting authorities after having all funding pulled last year so it could be given to the already tremendously well funded Team and Paralympic GB althletes instead. The money will not help the athletes pay for travel and accommodation so they can actually take part though - this is just for training. The athletes will need another £165,000 to get there. Compare the amount given to the Deaflympians to the £500 Million spent on the Olympic and Paralympic teams to prepare them for Rio in 2016.

Have a look at the video highlights of the last Deaflympic Games in Taipei:

UK Deaf Sport - Deaf Sport History archive

Recently UK Deaf Sport  received a message from the Belgian Deaf History Museum telling them about an archive of  photographs of deaf sport spanning many decades.

Bernard le Maire, from the Museum explained to UKDS:

"You may see hundreds of Deaflympics, Deaf European sport and even Deaf Belgian sport pictures taken between 1921 and 1980".

Click here to check out the amazing photos:

UKDS have noted that the captions to some photos are in French and Dutch. An online translator such as Google Translate, is required to provide details in English.

Guess who we bumped into at the football?

Regular readers (and over 1 million other people across the world) may recognise this little girl with her mummy and daddy. This is a Ava with her dad Nick and mum Lilli who we featured on PDDCS News back in January when a video of Ava signing at the dinner table went viral on the internet.

I (Andy) bumped into them at GB Deaf Football's match today verus Greece. Greece won 2-0 and ended GB's hopes of playing at next years Deaflympics. Shame - as GB had the majority of the ball and chances. There was a lot of unhappy and disappointed GB footballers around afterwards as the Greeks went wild.

During the match, Dad Nick, who is also a retired GB Deaf football international and is heavily involved in Fulham Deaf Football Club told me that he posted the video on his Facebook page and people just kept sharing it - until eventually it was shared over 4,000 times and the hits just kept racking up!

You'll be pleased to know that Ava is well and her sign language is even more impressive than it was in January. See the video that went round the world below..

Follow the build-up to the next Deaflympics

Don't forget amid the excitement of the Olympic and Paralympic Games that deaf athletes have their own games next year in Sofia. You can read about the build up on twitter by following Craig Crowley who is the President of the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf.

hello @icsdpresident this is @pddcs joining the ranks of followers from round the world! Good luck with the games in Sofia next year
— PDDCS (@PDDCS) September 3, 2012