The Brazilian men’s goalball team fulfilled all expectations on Thursday (5 April) by winning an international test event for Rio 2016. More importantly, the venue for the Paralympic goalball competition in September, the Future Arena, proved to be fully equipped to handle the needs of visually impaired athletes and spectators.

“We were able to test many aspects of the venue and it was all very well organised,” said Kari Rasanen, the goalball chairman of the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA).

Organisers installed special tactile paving to help people find their way in the brand-new sports centre. They also paid particular attention to the venue’s acoustics, a key issue in goalball. Goalball players can follow the ball only because it contains bells inside. Both teams are blindfolded to ensure equality, as levels of visual impairment may vary.  As with sports such as tennis and golf, goalball spectators need to remain in absolute silence while the ball is in play.

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Spectators Tomário Braga, Leandro Lucas and Milton Medeiros gave the Future Arena the thumbs-up (Photo: Rio 2016)
 

Rio 2016 organisers invited around 30 young students from a school for the visually impaired to test the suitability of the Future Arena for spectators. For Iris Paschoal, it was her first goalball event. “I managed to follow the games easily,” she said. “You can tell what’s going on by using your hearing.”

Athletes who participated in the test event also enjoyed the experience of competing in Rio. “I liked coming to Brazil,” Finnish player Ville Motonen said. “It’s very different to what we are used to.”

“The Brazilian people are very warm and they cheered for us too,” said USA athlete Daryl Walker.

Finland's Motonen is determined to defend the country's Paralympic gold (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)

Home advantage

In the final of the test event, home nation Brazil defeated world champions Lithuania by 11-7 to claim gold. Current Paralympic champions Finland came third, ahead of the USA.

The four participating countries are currently the leading powers in this increasingly popular sport. Brazil and Finland in particular have an intense rivalry. At London 2012, Finland defeated Brazil 8-1 in the gold medal match. Brazil enjoyed sweet revenge in 2014, hammering the Finns 9-1 in the final of the world championship, which was held in Finland.

Brazil are strong favourites going into the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games – but the Finns have other ideas.

“We have great expectations for the Paralympic Games,” Finland’s Motonen said. “We want to defend our gold from London here, especially because the Brazilians won the world championships in our country.”

If Finland are going to win gold again, they are going to have to do it the hard way. On Wednesday, in the draw for Rio 2016, the Finns were drawn in a tough group alongside fellow test-event competitors Lithuania and the USA. They will also have to face Beijing 2008 champions China and London 2012 bronze medallists Turkey.