Underthinking the Winter Deaflympics

So today I was talking to my friend Jeff Mansfield. Jeff is deaf, and he is also a gold medal winning international athlete, he competes in the Deaflympics Team USA Ice Hockey team.

Jeff is apparently also a male model.

Jeff was the first deaf person I had interacted with, and taught me some basic sign language, I learnt the alphabet in like an evening, and then tried to pick up the odd word as I went along. Most of my conversations with Jeff though involved us spelling words to each other with sign, which I imagine was slightly annoying for Jeff, imagine this....

"H...E...L...L...O...F..R..E..D...H...O...W...A..R...E.....Y...O...U"

To be fair I could say the above sentence in actual sign language and not just spelling it. The odd thing that struck me was how NZ sign language (based on two handed alphabet) was different from American Sign language (based on one handed alphabet). I mean both countries the language that is spoken is English, so I am not sure why the sign languages were so different, according to Jeff they were only 33% the same.

I blame this difference on our anti-nuclear ships policy

 The reason Jeff was in NZ was to play ice hockey in the NZIHL, where he played for the Dunedin Thunder.
The teams record wasn't so flash that year but Jeff was a stand out performer, making the scorelines a lot closer than they  could have been.

Jeff's leg on the left, accompanied by future Jersey Shore cast member Richie Russo

But I digress, the main reason I am writing this post is right at this very moment Jeff is meant to be defending his title along with his team-mates at the 2011 Winter Deaflympics in Slovakia, the problem is they have been cancelled. And they literally got cancelled at the last minute some teams were already in Slovakia, not the USA team they were in the Medallist Bar at JFK airport about to fly out when they were told.

Pictured: Not the 2011 Slovakian Winter Deaflympics

This late cancellation has lead to lots of cost to the National sporting bodies, as well as the athletes themselves.  I guess if you are like me you might not even be aware this event existed . Well I did some digging and apparently the Deaflympics are longest running multisport event excluding the Olympics themselves, the Summer version started in 1924 in Paris, and the Winter version in 1949 and this is the first time in history they have been cancelled. So how did it happen, why was this event cancelled?

Well a lot of people are blaming this man - Jaromir Ruda.

 But let's start at the beginning, when the deaflympics were first awarded to the Slovakians in 2005, the Slovakian Government refused to back the bid, because of the lack of infrastructure, so the fact it was awarded to them seemed strange, but you know what they had 6 years, surely they could get something together.

Dunedin did this in 1 year, I am pretty sure I could get close to doing this myself in 6 years.

And for the most part they did, from what I understand Jaromir Ruda raised 1.6 billion dollars in sponsorship for the tournament and planned stadiums, and booked hotel rooms for the visiting teams. In late 2005 he was put in remand standing accused of embezzling a lot of the sponsorship he had raised, but was released two years later, through some dodgy politics from what I am told.

Jaromir Ruda's bed

When he was released he was immediately reinstated as the head of the Slovakian Deaflympics organising committee, this was meet with some opposition, but protesting your belief that the wrong man is in the job by quitting doesn't really solve the problem, just means you are no longer associated. Leaving the man accused of embezzling all your money in charge seems just plain bizarre.
Now claims are coming out that the reason the stadiums weren't built because the money was never paid, hotel reservations were cancelled, and people pulled their sponsorship because of an accused embezzler's invovlement.

And who could blame them, probably safer to give your money to Bernie

 Turns out in the last year or so, Jaromir closed down the office and let a lot of people go, because he decided he could run the tournament better himself, and the Slovakian organising committee brought this?

"Huh?"

Your raised eyebrows are warrented Duane "The Rock" Johnson. That sounds like the perfect excuse to embezzle more money. Doing the work by yourself means there is no one to check what you are doing with tournament money.

Dance (and steal money) like nobody is watching

Jaromir Ruda is now facing criminal charges from the ICSD (International Committee of Sports for the Deaf) which is all well and good. But that doesn't help the athletes like Jeff who have trained hard for 4 years, and now have no tournament to go too.
 Apparently the Russian and Ukrainians sporting bodies are putting their heads together to try and organise a tournament before the end of the year, because their athletes get paid by the Government to train and compete, the amount they are paid is based on their performance at the deaflympics. So here is hoping they succeed.

With this man in charge of their country, how could the Russians fail?