COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, April 19. LESS than 24 hours after deaf Olympic Trials qualifier Marcus Titus took to Facebook in protest of the potential lack of hand signals at the U.S. Olympic Trials, USA Swimming has confirmed to Swimming World that officials will be required to use proper hand signals for all deaf and hard-of-hearing swimmers at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha. National Team Director Frank Busch, Titus' former coach at the University of Arizona, has stepped in and will require the use of hand signals at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“USA Swimming will use hand signals at the upcoming Olympic Trials in order to accommodate our deaf and hearing-impaired swimmers,” USA Swimming said in a statement. “We thank National Team member Marcus Titus for bringing this issue to our attention. USA Swimming embraces an inclusive culture and is pleased to be able to accommodate our athletes with hearing impairments by making this change. The ruling is in accordance with USA Swimming rules [Article 105.3]. Meeting the needs of our athletes remains a top priority for our organization, and we are pleased to take this action.”
Two days ago, Titus received word from Jim Sheehan, the Program Operations Vice President of USA Swimming, that the federation had planned on following FINA procedure completely during the U.S. Olympic Trials. In his letter, Sheehan stated “FINA does not have any hand signals in their rule book and at present there is no expectation or plans that any hand signals will be used at the Olympics. That means we are not planning to use hand signals at the Olympic Trials.”
Shehan's letter also related the multiple amounts of other solutions USA Swimming had in place using strobes and other light systems to accommodate deaf or hard-of-hearing swimmers.
Last night, Titus posted this response letter under the Facebook Fan Page entitled “USA Swimming Discriminates against Deaf swimmer,” which already has drawn nearly 1,000 followers. Titus made the case that without hand signals to communicate the various commands in the start sequence, deaf and hard-of-hearing swimmers would be at a major disadvantage.
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence is the following video from the 2011 Missouri Grand Prix, when the starter failed to give Titus the proper “take your mark” hand signal, thus leaving him on the starting block as the rest of the field dives in.
Also, this video from the 2010 nationals shows Titus struggling during a start when the hand signal official was blocked from a direct line-of-sight with Titus.