At the 27th ICSD Congress in 1983, two cities submitted their applications to host the 15th Deaflympics: Melbourne (Australia) and Christchurch (New Zealand). Christchurch won convincingly with 39 votes to 19.
For the first time ever, the Games could go ahead in the continent of Oceania! With this, the organisers wanted to create more awareness around the deaf and their culture in their country.
Belgium won a few medals with 6 athletes (4 men & 2 women): 1 silver and 2 bronze medals.
1. 053 athletes from 30 countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Bulgaria, West Germany, Turkey, Israel, Iran, Kuwait, Soviet Union, Japan, Korea, China, India, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA) participated in these Games with sports such as athletics, badminton, basketball, handball, swimming, water polo, football, volleyball, cycling, shooting, table tennis, tennis and wrestling.
Notable facts were:
- for the last time the Soviet Union participated in these Games, as it ceased to exist in 1991...;
- the top stars in the women's event was Australian swimmer Cindy-Lu Fitzpatrick with 7 gold medals and in the men's event Russian Dimitri Grigoriev with 6 gold medals;
In the medal standings, we saw : the USA finished in 1st place with 75 medals (22 gold, 30 silver and 23 bronze), while the Soviet Union took 2nd place with 60 medals (18 gold, 19 silver and 23 bronze) and West Germany won 55 medals (18 gold, 21 silver & 16 bronze).
- Atletics
- Els Boen (°1962) :
- 100 m hurdles: 5th place with 16,48.
- high jump (bronze) with 1,62 meter after Anneli Oiastu (1,74 m) from Russia & Connie Johnston (1.71 m) from USA.
- heptathlon (silver) with 4.072 points after Connie Johnston (4.903 points) from USA.
- Miranda De Bakker (°1969) :
- 800 m : DNF.
- 1.500 m : 5th place with 4.54,20.
- 3.000 m : 7th place with 10.51,79.
- Els Boen (°1962) :
- Swimming
- Wim Deprez (°1970) :
- 100 m freestyle: eliminated in the 1st round with 1.02:60.
- 200 m freestyle: eliminated in the 1st round with 2.20:71.
- 100 m butterfly: eliminated in the 1st round with 1.07:76.
- 200 m individual medley: eliminated in the 1st round with 2.38:71.
- Wim Deprez (°1970) :
- Cycling
- Gerald Troch (°1961) : time trial (bronze), road race ( 4th place ), 1.000 m Sprint & points race ( 5th place ).
- Lucien Uzeel (°1946): road race ( 8th place ), time trial, 1.000 m Sprint & points race ( 7th place ).
- Marc D'hondt (°1959) : road race ( 5th place ), time trial, 1.000 m Sprint ( 7th place ) & points race ( 8th place ).
