Canada beats U.S. in sport unique to Parapan Ams,
Edge American rivals in opening match of sport that stands out as unique to the Parapan Games
When he moves across the goalball floor, Ahmad Zeividavi moves with a sense of freedom and purpose.
And while he can’t see anything, he’s in complete command of his environment.
That’s a euphoric feeling and one he first discovered as a 13-year-old in Iran on a goalball court. It was somewhere he could move as he wanted and not worry about the dangers of being blind in a sighted world.
But seeing him throw his body in front of a ball about the size of a basketball, travelling some 60 km/h, it’s also easy to see the exhilaration of competition that has kept him in this sport at its highest levels.
“Many people think we play to be happy or to feel good but that’s not the reality,” the 29-year-old Zeividavi said. “We play to win, just like any other athlete.”
Of all the 15 sports that will be played over the next seven days at the 2015 Toronto Parapan Am Games, goalball stands out as unique. It’s an event that has only ever been a para sport and it wasn’t adapted from an able-bodied sport.
“If you look at track or swimming, the disabled athletes can never make the (overall) records, there’s always a difference. But in goalball the disabled are the only ones with the records — it’s our sport,” Zeividavi said. “I feel that’s very special.”
Even more special for Zeividavi on Saturday afternoon was scoring the winning goal in Canada’s 5-4 victory over the U.S. at Mississauga Sports Centre.
“I was so overwhelmed, so happy — a little too happy,” he said, laughing. “My coach told me to calm down because we needed that last save.” He got that one, too. When Canada plays the U.S. in any sport, there’s an innate rivalry but in goalball the Americans, along with the Brazilians, are the top teams at the Parapan Ams. So winning the first game of the round-robin tournament against them gives the Canadians an extra confidence boost.
As the centre, Zeividavi’s main job is to block incoming balls, and he tends to pass the ball to his wingers to throw. His ability to know where to slide his body with only the sound of the bells in the ball hurtling toward him as a guide seems uncanny but it’s born of years of daily training.
That’s also how the wingers find the corner of the net so often.
Goalball is played three-on-three by visually impaired and blind athletes, but they all wear blackout eyeshades to ensure equal footing on the volleyball-sized court with tactile lines and a goal the stretches the entire width of the court.
To the uninitiated, the sport looks like a vigorous mix of bowling and reverse-dodgeball.
Zeividavi been playing on Canada’s national team since 2010, a year after he emigrated from Iran, so being hit by balls is “normal” for him now. But that doesn’t make it easy. “The ball comes so fast and it’s not light, it’s 1.25 kg . . . there’s always bruises,” after a game, he said.
“But the good thing,” he said, winding up for his punch-line, “I don’t see them, so there’s no worries.”
Canada’s main goal-scorer of the match was veteran Brendan Gaulin. And in a role reversal similar to Zeividavi scoring the game-winner, Gaulin managed to save a free throw, which required him to defend the entire nine-metre wide goal, alone.
“Penalty shots are so hard to stop. It’s a big court and you’re not that big,” Gaulin said. “You almost consider those goals so when you stop one it’s like you’re taking a goal off the board for the opposition, those are huge.”
The entire game was a “huge confidence builder” for a team that’s in transition with three rookies on the six-man squad.
“We’ve just got to stick with it and keep working our tails off get ourselves to Rio and stand on top of the podium here,” Gaulin said.
The Canadian women lost to the Brazilians 3-1 in their first match of the round-robin tournament.
To qualify for 2016 Rio Paralympics, the Canadian teams need to be finish top two or come just behind Brazil and the U.S., who already qualified.
Goalball was invented in 1946 as a rehab sport for visually impaired World War II veterans. But playing it at the Toronto Parapan Am is a return to its early competitive roots.