To be a Deaf snowboarder in a race with hearing competitors, says Jeff Pollock, "is, in a single word, lonely."

That's one reason why the 16th Winter Deaflympics, which open Thursday in Salt Lake City, are so appealing to Pollock and other Deaf athletes. For the next 10 days, they'll have a chance not only to shine on snow and ice but to converse with other athletes from around the world.

They also hope the hearing public will drop by to see them compete and celebrate. This year's event has more Deaf athletes (365) from more countries (25) than any previous Deaflympics — which until fairly recently were known as Deaf World Games, and before that, World Games for the Deaf.

The change from WGD to DWG may seem like just a rearrangement of letters but actually reflects a worry in the Deaf community that the Deaf are not perceived as capable. In this case, they worried that "for the Deaf" in the original name sounded like the Games were governed by hearing people for Deaf people, says Edward Ingham, secretary general of the 16th Winter Deaflympics Organizing Committee.

As for the Deaflympics, the "lympics" is both a big deal and something of a stumbling block. On the one hand, those seven little letters have added name recognition and a certain Olympic sexiness to the quadrennial Deaf contest. But the new name — granted by a license from the U.S. Olympic Committee for use during these 2007 Games — has also brought some restrictions.

The Deaflympics Organizing Committee, for example, cannot get funding from competitors of USOC sponsors. So, when the Deaflympics received a $50,000 donation from Sprint, organizing committee chairman Dwight Benedict had to tear it up — because Sprint is a competitor of Olympic sponsor AT&T. The USOC is authorized by federal law to protect the use of Olympic "marks and terms" to protect its sponsors, who in turn "are our financial lifeblood," explains USOC spokesperson Darryl Seibel.

To add to the funding woes, the USOC — which in the past provided funding to USA Deaf Sports and other groups the USOC calls "disabled sports organizations — restructured in 2003 and began directing its resources to the Olympics and Paralympics. According to Benedict, Deaf sports groups were invited to join the Paralympics but declined, arguing that deafness is not a disability.