Results:
Men
Gold: FINLAND
Posio, Petri
Nousu, Tuomas
Alenius, Toni
Miinala, Erkki
Mattila, Jarno
Montonen, Ville
Silver: BRAZIL
Ferreira de Oliveira, Jose Roberto
Almeida Maciel Celente, Alexsander
Moreno da Silva, Leomon
Marques, Romario Diego
Santos Silvestre, Filippe
Moreno da Silva, Leandro
Bronze: TURKEY
Karakaya, Tuncay
Aydogdu, Abdullah
Ucar, Yusuf
Cesur, Mehmet
Alkan, Huseyin
Duzgun, Tekin Okan
Women
Gold: JAPAN
Wakasugi, Haruka
Adachi, Akiko
Kakehata, Eiko
Nakashima, Akane
Urata, Rie
Komiya, Masae
Silver: CHINA
Ju, Zhen
Fan, Feifei
Wang, Shasha
Lin, Shan
Chen, Fengqing
Wang, Ruixue
Bronze: SWEDEN
Andersson, Viktoria
Naesstrom, Sofia
Dahlberg, Anna
Gustavsson, Malin
Waglund, Maria
Jalmestal, Josefine
Goalball was devised in 1946 in an effort to rehabilitate visually impaired veterans who returned from World War II. In 1976, it was then introduced to the world at the Paralympic Games in Toronto.
The sport, exclusively for athletes with visual impairments, consists of two halves of 12 minutes each and athletes wear blackout masks on a playing court.
The object of the game is to roll the ball into the opposite goal while opposing players try to block the ball with their bodies. Bells inside the balls help orient the players, indicating the direction of the on-coming ball. Therefore, while play is in progress, complete silence is required in the venue to allow the players to instantly react to the ball.
