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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- They were once known as The Silent Games.
It's a description that doesn't quite fit as the Finnish hockey team practices for a game against Sweden in the 2007 Winter Deaflympics. The action on the ice is powerful.
Pucks clang off the post and sticks slap against the ice. If anything, the noises are more jarring without the sound of shouts from the players or coaches.
"I think it will definitely change the way you see or perceive someone who is deaf," says Dwight Benedict, chairman of the games, who spoke through a sign interpreter.
Running through Feb. 10, the games feature 310 deaf athletes from 24 countries competing in hockey, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding and curling -- a demonstration sport this year.
A few accommodations will be noticeable. There will be no starter guns -- countdowns to start races are visual. Cross-country skiers can lightly tap the racer in front of them with their pole to let them know the are passing them. When a penalty is called in hockey, strobe lights flash to alert the players to the call.
What spectators won't notice, says Benedict, is a lack of ability.
"Physically there are no concerns," Benedict said. "When it comes to competing in athletics we're able to play on a level playing field."
Benedict describes several things about the games as "eye opening." It could be the unofficial motto of the Deaflympics, which Benedict feels provides as much of an opportunity to champion deaf culture as crown the triumphant athletes.
The opening ceremonies scheduled for Saturday will have the traditional march of the athletes, but the performances will be by deaf individuals, he said.
"We do have audio provided for hearing family members," Benedict said. "But it will be a very visual kind of entertainment."
A cauldron will be lit representing the Olympic flame, but the games can't afford to have a gas fueled cauldron lit for the entire week. Instead, a representation of a flame will stay in the cauldron for the duration of the Games.
It's one of the several concessions these games have to make because of a tight budget.
Last year athletes were asked to raise $4,000 each to help fund the games. The United State's Olympic Committee no longer provides money to the Deaflympics after an overhaul following the 2002 Winter Games.
Funding for the Salt Lake City Deaflympics has come largely from donations by deaf communications companies Sorenson Communications and Communications Services for the Deaf and the Sorenson Legacy Fund.
"Nothing's going to stop us from having a great games," Benedict said. "Deaf people are so used to facing challenges."
There is one challenge hearing athletes have during international competitions that deaf athletes don't, Benedict said.
Thanks to International Sign, the athletes have less of a communication barrier with each other than athletes speaking verbal languages, he said.
With no set grammar, International Sign is more a series of shared gestures among American Sign Language and other sign languages.
Jukka Hyyppa, a Finnish hockey player who is in his third Deaflympics, said the event is as much about that camaraderie as it is sports.
"A lot of them are friends," Hyyppa said of the Swedish players he was preparing to face off against Friday. "After, we'll probably go out and have a good time together."
Salt Lake City, host city of the 2002 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, is the first city to host all three International Olympic Committee sanctioned games. Venues used for those games will also hold Deaflympics events this week.
Founded in 1924, the Deaflympics are the second-oldest international sports event in the world. Only the Olympics, founded in 1894, is older.
Those first summer games held in Paris were officially called The International Games for the Deaf, but known as the Silent Games.
In 1924 there were 145 athletes from nine European countries. The first winter deaf games were held in Austria in 1949 with 33 athletes from five countries.
The most recent summer Deaflympics was held in Melbourne, Australia in 2005 and drew 2,200 athletes from 70 countries.
The games officially became the Deaflympics in 2000. Participation in the Deaflympics is limited to those who have a hearing loss of at least 55 decibels in the better ear -- essentially a need to use some visual means to converse either lip reading or a sign language, Benedict said.
------ On the Net: http://www.2007deaflympics.com/
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
