For those who were unable to scoop up elusive (and in some cases prohibitively expensive) tickets for the 2008 Olympics, the Paralympics provided an affordable alternative. For all of September 2008, the Bank of China was a bustle of activity as throngs of eager sports fans qued up to get tickets to sports most have never even heard of before. I was one such person. I proudly walked away with tickets for wheelchair rugby and something called goalball. I had no idea what goalball was, but I imagined it is like handball, but in wheelchair. It sounded OK, and for 30 kuai you really can't go wrong.
I arrived at the campus of the Beijing Institute of Technology eagerly anticipating a night of action packed mayhem. Upon taking my courtside seat, I was greeted by the sight of an 18-meter long hardwood playing field with two nets on either side that were 9 meters long and 1.3 meters high. It definitely appeared to be wheelchair handball. Very good. And the schedule listed both the Canadian men's and women's teams in action. Hey, I'm no patriot, but there is nothing like being an ex-pat at an international sporting event to bring out a touch of nationalism.
Imagine my shock when the participants for the Canada vs. USA qualifying match came out and all appeared to be able bodied. Then I noticed something. They were all being lead onto the court by their coach. They were all blind.
The International Blind Sports Federation recognizes three levels of visual impairment, and so to make the playing field equal, all the players have their eyes taped shut and wear blindfolds. Kind of makes one wonder why you even have to be blind to play in the first place. And strangely enough, no flash photography was allowed. Why? The flash may distract the athletes. The logic behind this is confounding.
The rules appeared quite simple. Each team has three players. One team starts with the ball (which resembles a volleyball) and lobs it towards the net. The defending team lies prone on the ground and tries to stop the ball. Then they respond in time. Absolute silence is requested from the audience while the ball is in play, as the players rely on the sound of the ball bouncing off the floor to defend against it. I began to fear I may be ejected for laughing.
Of course, there are several rules to abide by in this herculean sport. Each team is only allowed to operate within their designated 3-meter long offensive zone. Also, the ball must touch the floor before reaching the overthrow line or it is considered a "high ball". Excessive noise or outside coaching are also forbidden. Failure to adhere to these rules results in a penalty shot, during which a single player defends the net. Of course, most of the time the players are unaware they've broken rules because they can neither see the line for their offensive zone or the overthrow line. Nor are they very good at capitalizing on the penalty shots. At one point the American team was awarded a penalty shot by virtue of a high ball by Canada. The crowd murmured with anticipation. A lone Canadian player defended the 9 meter wide net. The American threw the ball. The ball hit the east goalpost and rolled out of bounds. The Canadians in the crowd went wild for their goalkeeper. Or rather their goalpost.
The Canadian men delivered a vicious 8-2 pasting to their valiant American opponents, while the Canadian women fell 6-5 to Brazil in a nail-biting affair, despite the fact that one point a Brazilian player nearly hurled the ball into the stands before tripping over her own teammate.
So intrigued was I by this fascinating sport I did a little research on its origins. Goalball was invented by an Austrian named Hanz Lorenzen and a German named Sepp Reindle in 1946 for World War Two veterans who had lost their sight in the war. It was featured as a demonstration sport at the 1976 Paralympics in Montreal and the first world championship was held in 1978. It made its official debut at the Paralympics in 1980.
The Paralympic sport of wheelchair rugby received unprecedented attention in the wake of the acclaimed 2004 documentary Murderball. One can only hope that the heroic and inspirational sport of goalball gets the same treatment, though one has to wonder what catchy name the documentary would go by.
