Have you been tuned in to all the Deaflympics action over the past few days?! You can find fantastic daily highlight videos, photographs, all the results and a medals table over on the dedicated DeaflympicsGB website. If you’ve missed out on the action so far though, we’ve got a round up for you here!
The Opening Ceremony
We always knew this would be an emotional moment and we weren’t wrong! There are 3081 deaf athletes taking part in the Deaflympics this time and, although they weren’t all at the opening ceremony, it was still a wonderful sight to behold. A real rainbow of colour and pride!
Our football teams weren’t able to attend the ceremony but the rest of their GB teammates did them proud with GB Flag Bearer Paul Waring, silver medallist from Samsun 2017 proudly leading the GB team in the parade.
Football
Both the men’s and women’s teams have now played their opening matches, getting off to a great strart.
Men’s Football
GB Men should have had an opening match against Japan but two teams withdrew from the competition, meaning a redraw. This left the men’s team playing Turkey in their opening group match.
It was a tense match, with quite a few yellow cards, highlighting the long rivalry between these teams! The game ended in a 1-1 draw, with Abdou Jobe finding the net for GB. A good opening result but it’s important now that GB Men beat Iran in their next match in order to progress out of the group.
Women’s Football
The first game for the GB Women was against Australia, where a calm penalty from Macie White resulted in a 1-0 win for GB.
We’re on the edge of our seats for the next matches!
Tennis
The singles competition started with a fantastic win for GB’s Esah Hayat against Japan’s Fuga Miyagawa in the singles draw, winning 6-3, 6-4.
Pete Wilcox followed suit with a strong win over Canada’s Alexandre L’Allier-Trejo; 6-1, 6-0.
Charlie Denton did us proud at his first Deaflympics, but lost to Slovakian Marek Vaco 3-6, 1-6. He’s back in the action in the men’s doubles today though, where we’ll be cheering him on.
What’s next…
Coming up in the next few days is cycling, shooting and more football and tennis. Let’s Go GB!
Don’t forget to follow along on the DeaflympicsGB website!