The first edition of the World Deaf Shooting Championships was staged at the Shooting Centre of the Dynamo Sports Complex (2a Novo-Davlikeevskaya St., Mirny Township, Kazan) on September 8-14. 66 athletes representing 16 nations came to Kazan for the event.
About tournament
Shooting is the earliest discipline in deaf sports, which was included in the competition programme of the first Summer Deaflympic Games 1924 in Paris (FRA). To qualify for the Deaflympics and competitions approved by the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD), athletes must have a hearing loss of at least 55 db in their ‘better ear’. Sports for the deaf are played with all the same rules as able-bodied sports.
The first European Deaf Shooting Championships were held in 1967. The world championships in Kazan were an inaugural edition in the history of this sport. The tournament held under the auspices of the ICSD and Russian Committee of Deaf Sports brought together men’s and women’s teams representing 16 nations: Hungary, Germany, Greece, Israel, India, Cyprus, Chinese Taipei, Latvia, Mongolia, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, Finland, Czech Republic, Croatia and Switzerland. 12 sets of medals were contested in men’s and women’s airgun and small arm events.
The honour to host the 1st World Deaf Shooting Championships was granted to the Shooting Centre of the Dynamo Sports Complex in Kazan, where the shooting tournament of the 27th Summer Universiade had been held in the summer of 2013. The upcoming tournament was the crucial stage of the teams’ preparation for the upcoming 23rd Summer Deaflympic Games in Samsun (TRK) in July 2017.
Competition results
Ukraine topped the medal table with 12 medals, 7 of which are gold. The Russian shooters placed second with 11 medals, only 2 of which are gold. Germany placed third with 2 gold, 2 silver medals and 1 bronze. 8 world records were established.
