ICSD 2022-2024: Progress under President Adam Kosa’s Leadership

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Our 600 days update on the leadership of ICSD

Seven weeks ago we met ICSD President when he came to the UK to speak at the Sport Accord gathering in Birmingham. He asked why Two Big Ears had stopped reporting and we replied that we had been happy with the progress that ICSD is making and so had nothing to say.

President Kosa explained how much he has enjoyed reading the balanced and evidence-based reports that we have put out there and has encouraged us to continue keeping ICSD under the microscope and holding them to account.

So, we are back.

Two Big Ears Editor, Stuart Harrison and UK Deaf Sports CEO Joanne Cholerton in conversation with ICSD president Kosa at the recent Sport Accord in Birmingham UK

Our first report on the new leadership of ICSD, President Adam Kosa and Vice President Yutaka Osugi went out to you all about 600 days ago (August 2022).

Back then, we were wondering what the new leadership was going to do about some important matters. We put some of these questions to Kosa and this is what we have learnt

Relationships with the IPC and Paralympics

The ICSD have opened up a dialogue with the IPC, to maintain the Mutual respect and support for each others status within the Olympic family under the IOC.

The intention is to strengthen the partnership under the Memorandum of Understanding that has been around now for some time.

Many people will be pleased to see this happening because not so long ago, there were grave concerns about Rukhledev’s arrogance and isolationism which was damaging to international relations.

Commissions

Since we last reported about 600 days ago, the commissions have been active under the guidance of the ICSD Executive Committee.

Recently this year: Athletes and the Women’s commissions have met. Anti-doping has been prominent with a workshop at the Taekwondo world championships and education postings on social media.

Further protections of rights under the ICSD include a statement on racism and how this will be dealt with.

Two Big Ears and UK Deaf Sport discussed the challenges that Great Britain has in trying to get government recognition and funding for GB Deaflympians on a par with GB Paralympians.

President Kosa offered to share important documents in support of the campaign and these arrived in good time at the UK Deaf Sports offices soon after Kosa returned home.

Events

We have seen a full calendar of events happening including the long-awaited Young games that took place in Sao Paulo Brazil. Kosa was proud to remind us that there has been no event cancellations of World Championships so far.

Indeed whilst we were at Sport Acord, we were delighted to have President Kosa’s support as we held discussions with major decision makers on hosting international Deaf sports events in the UK in the future.

2025 Deaflympics

Preparations are ongoing and well underway for Tokyo and we spoke to member of staff of the organising committee who came to Sport Accord to promote the event to the world family if International Federations and major sponsors.

Kosa is determined that the old habits of short-term decision making when bidding and planning for future Summer and Winter games will be dealt with and some significant changes are already being made.

Countries must now make all payments in full three months before the Deaflympics take place, to ensure good cashflow and safeguarding of the infrastructures in place and the commitment of the host cities.

We also learnt from Kosa that there will be a tightening up of qualifications for athletes to compete at the Deaflympics, moving closer to ‘performance’ rather than participation. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on some sports in the future.

Indeed, Kosa wants ICSD to move with the times and if that means some sports no longer on the Deaflympic programme and replaced with more popular sports amongst young people, then this will happen. The ICSD has an open-mind on this and e-sports was part of our discussions.

Russia and Belarus

ICSD continue to adhere to the IOC guidance on participation of athletes from Russia and Belarus. We asked Kosa how ICSD plans to police the conditions that have been brought in to ensure neutrality.

One of the conditions is that Russian athletes state that they do not support the invasion of Ukraine, such a statement would be penalised by the state in Russia, so this will reduce the numbers taking part.

Indeed we spoke about the amazing results of the Ukraine athletes especially since the current phase of the war broke out and we discussed the fact that Ukraine is making the most of the opportunities to win, because at some point in the distant future, when Russia is allowed back in, they will dominate again.

We asked about the staffing situation and the general concerns about the operational standards. It was pointed out to us that the ICSD Executive is somewhat uncomfortable with the way the Summer Deaflympics left the host city in debt.

The most recent news that the ICSD is exploring options of relocating it’s HQ away from Lausanne suggests that changes are underway to disconnect the organisation from the previous management experiences.

Coming Up Next

Our next post will discuss the recent overhaul of the ICSD Constitution that took place at the recent Extraordinary Congress on the 10th March in Türkiye and what this means for deaf sports and the members of ICSD.

One to Watch this Week

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Two Big Ears, will be keeping up to date on the progress of the Profoundly Deaf European U23 silver medallist hammer thrower, Charlotte Payne, who debuts at this week’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

Charlotte, from Reading, UK, is 21 years old who, last year, became the British Champion for the first time in the Women’s Hammer with a throw of 70.59m as she also became the youngest British woman to throw over 70m.

Charlotte Payne (GB) [Getty Images]

Charlotte missed out on last years Commonwealth Games as she failed to qualify, (she broke the British record after the qualifying date). Anna Purchase, went on to represent England at the games and joins Charlotte in Budapest this week. Anna and Charlotte are chasing the 74.54m record set by Sophie Hitchon at the Rio Olympics in 2016, who has since retired from the sport. ‘We are coming into a golden age of hammer’ they told the BBC.

We are not expecting Charlotte to win a medal in Budapest as the event is currently dominated by the North Americans, led by 27- year-old, Brooke Anderson who is only the 3rd person who has thrown over 80m in this event.

Ranked 30th in the world with a best throw of 72.51 this summer, Charlotte is one of the four youngest competitors at this years event including Silja Kosonen (FIN) the European U23 Champion (ranked 8th). The others are Jie Zhao (CHN) 18th and Rose Loga (FRA) 19th. Charlotte has shown that she can compete with the best as she came second to Kosonen and beat Loga by 1.26m at the European U23 championships this year.

The event starts on Wednesday 23rd August with two qualifying groups at 19:00 and 20:35. The final will be held the next day 24th August at 20:26.

If you are watching from the UK we might be able to catch up with the event on the BBC between 19:00 – 21:00. If you like outside the UK, you an find your TV viewing times at where to watch

Payne told the BBC “I hope that I can offer some sort of inspiration for other deaf athletes coming through”.

If you know of any other deaf athletes competing in Budapest this week, please let us know so that we can cover them in our reporting.

See more reporting from the BBC

Who is in charge at ICSD: Rebrov or Kosa?

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The Summer Games of Sport organised by the All-Russian Sports Federation of the Deaf has sparked an international debate in the Deaf sports community this summer, with the ICSD Executive Director appearing to be defying warnings from the ICSD.

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ICSD took action, and on:

5 March 2022 ICSD banned Russian and Belarussian athletes from competing in ICSD sanctioned events, including those organised by affiliated IDSFs (basketball, chess, football and golf) and the four regional confederations (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Pan-America)

21 March 2023 When it became known that the Summer Deaf Games, We are Together was being organised by ICSD Executive Director Dimitry Rebrov, Russia was warned by ICSD not to use the name Deaflympics, nor the Deaflympic logo. ICSD also refused to support the event or recognise it as part of the Deaflympic Movement.

July – August 2023 Despite these warnings Rebrov went ahead an allowed the OSFSG website to promote the event as Summer Games of the Deaflympics in all of its news reports including a welcome address from Mr. Putin himself.

Screenshot of OSFSG website

Most of the world was expecting a games for banned athletes and they were surprised and alarmed when Rebrov claimed that 1,500 athletes from 30 nations were taking part. Including one athlete from the USA.

Kenyan athletes were seen wearing the Deaflympics logo on their competition clothing.

30 July2023 – ICSD President Kosa went on social media to say:

  1. We told Rebrov, our Executive Director, not to use the Deaflympics logo and name
  2. We have been ‘monitoring’ the situation and Rebrov, is not conducting any ICSD business, during the period of the Russian games.
  3. OSFSG is not a member of ICSD so we cannot stop them.
  4. This is a Russian thing: They organised a Paralympics event in Autumn 2022 and early Summer 2023 and an Olympic event of BRICS nations will be going ahead in 2024.
  5. ICSD will follow the IOC on decisions about Russia and Belarus.

1 August 2023 – OSFSG website and social media reported: The head of the Asia-Pacific Confederation for the Sports for the Deaf, Mohammed Pargar, in his speech in international sign language, emhasised the unifying role of sports designed to improve the world, and, as his own initiative, invited the national teams of Russia and Belarus to participate in sports competitions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Screenshot – OSFSG social media

3 August 2023: The ICSD website published a statement with Pargar denying that he was representing Asia-Pacific and that he did not make any such invitation.

Screenshot – ICSD website

All the activities we have mentioned suggest that there might be an internal battle of wits between Rebrov and Kosa.

You Tube Interview with LET Winner Diksha Dagar

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Interview with Diksha Dagar after her win in the LET Czech Ladies Open 2023

Video Credit: http://bit.ly/LETGolf

Diksha Dagar claims her second LET title

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Deaflympian Dikshar Dagar has won the Tipsport Czech Ladies Open at Royal Beroun Golf Club.

Dagar had a five stroke lead going in to the final and played like a magician carding six consecutive pars, two birdies. her only bogey of the day came at the 10th when she pulled her shot into water.

Photo Credit: Ladies European Tour

She felt the pressure on the back nine “I saw the scoreboard on the 16th and thought thank God I made a birdie on the 15th. I had a difficult chip on 16 and after i made a par there, I thought, two holes to go and a three-shot lead, I can finally breathe a little more easily.”

She is focussed on representing India at the Paris Olympics and has started to cut out unnecessary activities from her daily routine such has no more late night TV so that she gets more sleep.

Dagar winning gold at the 2021 Deaflympics in Brazil. photo credit: AFP http://www.news9live.com

As an amateur, the Deaf golf world saw her for the first time at the 2017 Deaflympics in Samsun, Turkey where she took the silver medal behind the expereinced professional Kaylin Yost (USA). The following year Dagar won the 2018 World Deaf Golf Championships on her debut, delivering the lowest scores in the history of the competition. She turned professional almost immediately and her first professional win was the 2019 Investec South African Women’s Open as an 18-year-old rookie and it has been a long wait for her second title. She explained that the first win just happened and she had to work really hard for the second title, and she felt it getting close in recent weeks as she was on improving form.

First Deaf Woman Conquers Everest

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Shayna Unger has become the first profoundly deaf woman to climb Mount Everest.

According to gearjunkie.com Shayna and her climbing partner Scott Lehmann who is also profoundly deaf, peaked the summit at 6 a.m. on May 22, 2023.

Unger and Lehmann have been using their Everest expedition to inspire and educate their deaf students and they have an excellent website. with some amazing video footage of their climbs

The first Deaf person to climb Everest was Japanese Deaflympian Satoshi Tamura an alpine skiier, on May 21, 2016, 7 years ago.

Photo: scottshayna.com

Lehmann and Unger have already climbed Denali, Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc and Aconcagua as an all-Deaf team. They have now completed four of the World’s seven big summits.

Bravo!

Deaflympian grabs TV Game show job

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A Popular gameshow on the BBC in the UK has recruited Jodie Ounsley, GB Deaflympian as a Gladiator.

Professional Exeter Chiefs Rugby Player, Jodie Ounsley, is named ‘Fury’ thanks to her power and passion for competition. A former England Women’s Rugy Seven’s player, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu British Champion and five times World Coal Carrying champion, she won the title of Deaf Sports Personality of The Year in 2020.

Jodie has Gladiators in her blood, her father was a contender on the show in 2008, and she has been training to outdo him ever since. When she was younger she even dressed up as a Gladiator and practiced the games in her living room! Contenders beware, when that game starts you’ll feel the wrath of ‘Fury’.

You can follow at https://www.gladiatorstv.com/

This comes after a series of TV shows featuring deaf contestants in different countries over the years. We recently saw GB Football Deaflympian Jamie Clark in an SAS style show.

ICSD Ask Rukhledev to return his Medal of Honor

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The disgraced former ICSD President Valery Rukhledev as been removed from the list of ICSD Medal of Honor recipients and he has been asked to return the award.

Valery Rukhledev

Rukhledev was the 9th ICSD President form 2013 -2018 despite concerns about his integrity to hold office. The Russian Deaf community had long been dissatisfied with VOG, the All-Russian Society of the Deaf of which he also presided whilst ICSD president.

As we reported here, earlier this month, Rukhledev has been sentenced to seven years on a penal colony for his part in embezzling funds relating to VOG. Because of this, the ICSD Executive has decided to withdraw the medal of Honor that he was awarded in 2017 in recognition of his contributions to international deaf sports. The Executive decided that ‘Mr Rukhledev no longer meets the criteria for this esteemed award.’

ICSD Still Employing Rebrov – People ask ‘What is Going on’?

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The global Deaf community has reacted in frustration to the ICSD handling of further misdemeanours by their Russian-based CEO.

Earlier this month, Deaf sports community watchers were alerted to the fact that the ICSD CEO was endorsing and leading Russia’s plans to hold their own government sponsored, ‘Alternative Summer Deaflympics’ because they, along with Belarus are banned from international competitions due to their stance on the illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Nothing wrong with Russia doing their own thing, they have to to everything they can to keep the Russian population in the dark on what’s happening in Ukraine.

But a news video broadcasted on You Tube by Russian Deaf Television, shows Dmitry Rebrov, the employee of the ICSD and supposed guardian of the Deaflympic brand, endorsing the “Alternative Deaflympic Summer Games” in Ufa, Russia.

video created by Russian Deaf TV

Shocked by this blatant disregard for the integrity of Deaf sport, and a claim that Russia intends to invite other nations to participate, the Deaflympic historian Pinchas, shared the story and video on 3rd March asking what ICSD planned to do about it.

On 21st March, ICSD issued a statement that:

“According to our current information, the sports event is organised by the Government of the Russian Federation and the All-Russian Sports federation of Deaf Sport (OSFSG). The sports organisation is not a member of the ICSD. According to the sports federation, the word “Deaflympics” will not be used officially at the event.

The ICSD will not give any form of permission for the use of the word ‘Deaflympics’ and will closely monitor the organisation of the Russian Summer Games of Deaf Athletes “We are Together” and if necessary, take action and take any necessary steps against any possible unlawful use of the word “Deaflympics”.

The statement finished by explaining their actions towards Rebrov: “Mr. Dmitry Rebrov has agreed to refrain from promoting and organising the Summer Games of Deaf Athletes “We are Together Sport”.

Once again, people are feeling that Rebrov brings the ICSD and the Deaflympics into disrepute, and infuriated Deaf people have commented on this direct to ICSD, that stronger action should be taken by the ICSD Board. Indeed how on earth are they going to ‘closely monitor‘ what’s going on in Russia ?

“Imagine if the well known Deaf sports historian did not post (the story) on social media it would have made things worse for ICSD. Why didn’t the ICSD CEO inform ICSD about the alternative Deaflympics in the first place. It sounds very strange and awkward.” Donal Desmond

“While Russian athletes are banned from competing in most international sport, due to multiple state sponsored doping and their highly illegal invasion of Ukraine, ICSD should not be employing a Russian! He has been guilty of audiogram fraud. This undermines ICSD’s efforts to build a good reputation” John Neilson

Of course, Miguel Alejandro and others are wondering “why all the fuss” when we should be promoting and putting Deaf athletes first. But this is seen as ignorant and the lack of concern for the unprofessionalism and disregard shown by Rebrov continues to go unchecked.

The lukewarm reactions by non-Western nations to Russian doping, audiogram frauds, imposter athletes and ICSDs continuance to employ a Russian to oversee Deaf sport and to appoint Russians as Technical Directors etc reflects the geopolitical attitude towards the West that we see in mainstream society and such sentiments are no different in the global Deaf community. Perhaps that explains why Rebrov still has a job and why, as far as we know, the IOC has not yet restored it’s funding and full support to ICSD.

Former ICSD President Sentenced to 7 years in a Penal Colony

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The court sentenced the ex-head of VOG Rukhledev to 7 years in prison for a multi-million dollar embezzlement

The Khamovniki Court of Moscow today, March 22, 2023, sentenced the former president of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG) Valery Rukhledev to 7 years in a penal colony in the case of multimillion-dollar embezzlement of the organization’s funds.

According to TASS, “the court decided to find Rukhledev guilty and sentence him to 7 years in a penal colony,” the judge announced the decision.

In addition, the court announced the verdict for other defendants. Thus, the former VOG lawyer Yevgeny Novoseltsev was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, and the court appointed Tatyana Zembatova, head of the finance department, 4.5 years in a penal colony.

According to media reports, a criminal case on the theft of more than 300 million roubles in the All-Russian Society of the Deaf was initiated in 2018 under the article fraud on an especially large scale, it was then that the investigation detained Novoselets, who also headed the VOG subsidiary. Later, the then president of the VOG, Rukhledev, Zembatova, and legal assistant Irina Rudenko were detained. The Rudenko case was separated into a separate proceeding and considered in a special order, since she repented and fully admitted her guilt.

Rukhledev was also President of the ICSD (International Deaf Sport for the Deaf) he was elected in 2013 and then removed after he was placed under house arrest in 2018.