A message from Tom Smith (GB Deaf Cycling Team)

Dear All

In March 2008, the Government pulled the funding from deaf sport in the UK. This means that Deaf Athletes have spent the last 3 years preparing for the honour of representing Great Britain on the world stage at the Deaflympics 2009 in Taipei; only to be told they can't go due to the funding loss. Please see the two 'Times Newspaper' links for more information of this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4091987.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4092032.ece

We recognise Deaf Sport is a minority sport, but we feel that in the UK deaf athletes do not have equality of opportunity when compared to Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Olympic athletes and Paralympic athletes are given tens of millions of government and lottery funding to train for, and then attend, international sporting events on behalf of the nation.

All the athletes of Beijing GB Team did a fantastic job at the Olympics and Paralympics. Their success has given us all (Deaf Athletes) hope, ambition, and drive to do well in our own Deaflympics. We feel that the grass root sports should benefit from their success as well as improve on their own success.

British Deaf Athletes won 16 medals at the previous Deaf Olympics, with very little funding. We know we can improve on this!

Add your voice to the campaign to reinstate funding by taking 2 minutes to sign the petition at

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/GBDeaflympics/

Please also feel free to join my Facebook group "GB Deaf Sport". This will help the awareness of Deaf Sport, and to raise interest and funds for all Deaf Sports and the forthcoming Deaflympics.

Pass on the message about the group and the petition to everyone you know! The more names we have on the petition by, the better chance we have of securing funding for the Deaflympics!

Kind Regards

Tom Smith
GB Deaf Cycling Team