Hampshire audiologists will be providing deafness doping tests for athletes at this summer's Deaflympics.

The experts from the University of Southampton have been chosen to assess the levels of hearing loss of sportsmen and women competing at the event for deaf and hard of hearing athletes being held in Sofia, Bulgaria, later this month.

Hannah Semeraro and Charlotte Morgan from the university's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research will be scientific advisers to the International Committee of Sport for the Deaf (ICSD), which organises the games.

The games will have about 3,000 athletes taking part from more than 80 countries.

Hannah said: ''We will be carrying out hearing tests on up to 150 athletes in Sofia. Some athletes come from countries which do not have adequate equipment to carry out hearing tests, so will therefore need to be tested when they arrive.

''Other athletes will be spot checked to ensure their hearing loss is at a level which allows them to compete.

''We are aiming to ensure no athlete has an unfair advantage over another because their hearing ability does not meet the participation requirements.''

''The eligibility of our athletes is something we take very seriously,'' said ICSD president Craig Crowley.

''To ensure the integrity of our events, we do need to ensure that our athletes meet our criteria for deafness before they line up for competition. ICSD is grateful to the University of Southampton for developing and implementing measures for us to ensure all our athletes are competing fairly.''

The Deaflympics will be held between July 26 and August 4.