Spartanburg Named Site for 2006 World Goalball Championships

(Colorado Springs, Colorado) – The U.S. Association of Blind Athletes is pleased to announce the 2006 International Blind Sports Association World Goalball Championships will be held at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg, June 26-July 2.

The IBSA World Goalball Championships are the second most prestigious international competition in the sport and will serve as a qualifier for the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games. Sixteen men’s and 12 women’s teams will vie for the title of World Champion as well as the coveted slots at the Beijing Games.

Goalball is a team sport played by blind and visually impaired athletes around the world. A team of three athletes on each side of the court aims to launch a ball at speeds of more than 30mph into the opposing side's goal on an indoor volleyball-sized court.  All athletes are blindfolded to create a state of total blackness and nine bells encased in a ball the size of a basketball help the athletes track the ball's location.

The city of Spartanburg has a great deal of experience playing host to goalball events as both the 2001 IBSA Pan American Games and 2004 USABA Goalball National Championships were held in Spartanburg.

“Our organizing committee is diligently working to prepare for these championships. We feel Spartanburg is the perfect venue – large enough to offer the requisite amenities, yet small enough so that our entire community will rally behind this event,” said Local Organizing Committee Chairman Jack Todd (Spartanburg, S.C.)

Six men’s teams and four women’s teams already have qualified for the World Championships based upon their top finishes in Athens. The remaining teams will be selected during the next year primarily through qualifying tournaments in each of the five regions of the world (Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania).

Pre-qualified teams are as follows:

Men

• Denmark
• Sweden
• United States
• Canada
• Finland
• Spain

Women

• Canada
• United States
• Japan
• Finland

For more information, contact Nicole Jomantas, USABA Communications Director, at (719) 630-0422, ext. 10 or njomantas@usaba.org.

USABA, a member organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee, is a non-profit organization that provides training for blind and visually impaired athletes for competition in nine sports. USABA members range from blind children developing sports skills to elite athletes who train for competitions such as the Paralympic Games, the world's second largest athletic competition that draws more than 4,000 disabled athletes.