Disability Sports Event

26 April 2023

This week we’ve been running a Disability Sport event at Latymer with students learning and playing the exciting sport of Goalball. Our thanks to Goalball UK for working with us to deliver these sessions.

Goalball is a team sport designed specifically for athletes with a vision impairment. Participants compete in teams of three, and try to throw a ball that has bells embedded inside of it into the opponents’ goal. The ball is thrown by hand and never kicked. Using ear-hand coordination, originating as a rehabilitation exercise, the sport has no able-bodied equivalent. Able-bodied athletes are also blindfolded when playing this sport. Played indoors, usually on a volleyball court, teams alternate throwing or rolling the ball from one end of the playing area to the other, and players remain in the area of their own goal in both defence and attack. Players must use the sound of the bell to judge the position and movement of the ball. Eyeshades allow partially-sighted players to compete on an equal footing with blind players. Eyepatches may be worn under eyeshades to ensure complete coverage of the eye, and prevent any vision should the eyeshades become dislodged. The International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA), founded in 1981 and responsible for a range of sports for blind and partially-sighted people, is the official governing body for the sport.

Head of Sport, Mrs Maclean said: “Sport has a unique ability to tackle the stigma and discrimination associated with disability because it can transform community attitudes about persons with disabilities by highlighting their skills and reducing the tendency to see the disability rather than the individual.”