Women and men’s goalball teams open Rio tournament with losses

Sept. 9, 2016 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Team Canada’s men’s and women’s goalball teams began their Paralympic Games round robin play today at the Future Arena in Rio, with the women falling to Turkey 12-4 and the men losing to Brazil 11-3.
Amy Burk opened the scoring for the Canadian women against Turkey with a goal on the very first shot of the game, to which Turkey quickly replied with their own goal. The two teams traded goals once more and appeared closely matched, but then Turkey went on a scoring spree, going on to win 12-4.

“It’s not the outcome we wanted,” said Burk, who scored all four of Canada’s goals. “I think we all had a little bit of nerves going in to it. Scoring on the first shot of the game, the first three shots of that game were goals, so you can tell there were nerves on both sides. But we finished that game strong like we wanted to do and I know we’re going to push forward with that momentum to our game on Sunday.

Canada’s men’s team started strongly against world No. 1 Brazil, holding the game scoreless for the first six minutes until penalty shots later in the game contributed to Brazil running up the score. Bruno Haché scored twice and Doug Ripley scored once for the Canadians. “The first six minutes were really good defensively, the team chemistry was there,” said men’s team head coach Nathalie Séguin. “It was a good game and a good start of the Games.”

Team Canada men will play Germany on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. local time. Team Canada women will play Ukraine on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. local time.

For more information, please contact: Alison Korn Goalball media attaché Senior Manager, Media Relations and Communications Canadian Paralympic Committee Rio cell: +55 (21) 99033-0131 Email: akorn@paralympic.ca

Photo credit – Canadian Paralympic Committee 2016