Goalball: silence in court

In his series on Paralympic sports without Olympic counterparts, Paul Carter takes a look at what must be the world’s most scaled-down team game

]Played exclusively by competitors with a visual impairment, goalball is a fast-paced and exciting team sport that has been part of the Paralympic roster since the 1980 Games in Arnhem.

It was originally invented by a German and an Austrian just after the last war as a means of rehabilitating soldiers blinded in combat. Since then it has grown beyond all recognition to become the most popular visually-impaired-only sport in the world.

Goalball is played on an indoor court, 18m by 9m in size, and the court’s lines are marked out with tactile taping so that players can locate themselves on the field of play.

The game is a contest between two teams of three players. The object is to get a ball the size of a football or medicine ball into the opposing team’s goal at the other end of the court.

The goals span the entire 9m width of the pitch.

The ball is rolled or bowled by hand to the opposite side of the court. Players on the opposing team can block the ball with any part of their body.

A game consists of two halves of 12 minutes, with a three-minute break halfway through each half.

The winner is the team that scores the most goals.

Inside the ball there are a number of bells that help the players locate the ball’s position on the court.

Although exclusively for blind and visually impaired players, all players must wear blindfolds and eye shades to eliminate the possibility of players with less limited sight than others gaining any form of advantage. Sighted players are eligible to compete in domestic competitions, but only blind or visually impaired players can take part in international tournaments or events.

The audible aspect of goalball means that from a spectator perspective, it is an unusual, and at first disconcerting, sport to watch.

Players need to be able to hear the sound of the ball moving around the court, and so goalball is usually played in complete silence to ensure maximum concentration.

After securing funding and investment from UK Sport, Great Britain will have both men’s and women’s teams competing at the 2012 Paralympics in London.

The last time goalball world championships were held on home soil was in Sheffield in 2010. Sadly, home advantage did not prove to be a decisive factor at the time, as the GB women’s team finished in 11th place, while our men ended up ranked 16th. Lithuania, China and Iran took the top three places in the men’s competition, while China, the USA and Sweden claimed the women’s medals.

Going into 2012, Great Britain will be looking to continue their development in the sport and make further progress.

While on paper the medal chances would appear to be slim, goalball is a sport that traditionally has never been dominated by one particular team or country, so the prospect of the home nation causing an upset is not beyond the realms of probability. All of us will be (silently) hoping for just that outcome.