Although regular exercise activities of children and young people with hearing impairments had been recorded since the end of the 19th century, such as attending physical education classes at the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Zagreb, sports for the deaf began to develop systematically from the 1920s on. The first deaf society was founded under the name Dobrotvor (Philanthropist) in Zagreb in 1921, and a deaf football team was active within it from 1925 on. The immediate reason for the start of the systematic development of deaf sports in Croatia was the establishment of the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (Comité International des Sports des Sourds – CISS) in Paris in 1924 and the holding of the 1st International Silent Games in Paris in the same year. Later on, chess and athletics were further sports activities for the deaf also fostered within the Dobrotvor Society. After the Second World War, deaf sports developed more intensively, and a large number of sports clubs for the deaf were founded. The one that stood out among them was the Silent Sports Society of the Deaf, founded in Zagreb in 1949. In the same year, the 1st Yugoslav Sports Games for the Deaf were held in Zagreb. Deaf sports at the level of the national federation were taken care of by the Croatian Sports and Recreation Association for the Disabled after its foundation in 1964, that is, the Croatian Sports Commission for the Deaf, which operated within it. The Croatian Deaf Sports Association was founded in 1992 as an independent national sports association that takes care of deaf sports. The Croatian Deaf Sports Association has been a member of the International Deaflympic Committee (IDC) since 1993. Croatian deaf athletes have continuously participated in the Deaflympics since 1949. Their first Deaflympic medal was won by track and field athlete Božidar Tironi in 1949.
Standing out among the most successful is the Croatian men’s deaf handball team that has won four gold, one silver and two bronze Deaflympic medals, along with two world and four European gold medals.
List of Deaflympic medallists:
Summer Games:
1993 Sofia – handball (bronze medal)
1997 Copenhagen – handball (silver medal)
2001 Rome – handball (gold medal)
2005 Melbourne – handball (gold medal)
2009 Taipei – handball (gold medal)
2013 Sofia – handball (gold medal); Lana Skeledžija (shooting, silver medal)
2017 Samsun – handball (bronze medal); Boris Gramnjak (shooting, 1 silver medal, 1 bronze medal); Laura Štefanac (athletics, gold medal); Sara Rajčević (taekwondo, silver medal); Matea Kolovrat (taekwondo, silver medal)
2022 Caxias do Sul – handball (gold medal); Laura Štefanac (athletics, gold medal); Matea Kolovrat (taekwondo, gold medal); Petra Goleš (taekwondo, silver medal)
Winter Games:
2007 Salt Lake – Rea Hraski (skiing, bronze medal)
2019 Valtellina-Valchiavenna – Rea Hraski (skiing, 2 bronze medals); men’s team (chess, bronze medal)
2024 Erzurum – Bogdan Božinović (chess, silver medal); men’s team (chess, gold medal)