July 5-12 was the week of goalball action at the 2015 IBSA Goalball European Championships Men and Women A, where the men from host country Lithuania won bronze medals. The championships ended with an absolute European champion, Turkey.  The Turkish women won the final game against Russia 5:0 and the Turkish men won gold over Finland after a hard fought battle which ended 9:8.

In women’s games, third place finisher Ukraine, which qualified for Rio, did not even try to hide their emotions when they won the match in overtime after a golden goal 5:4 win against Israel.

On the men’s side, the Czech Republic took fourth place. In the men’s Bronze game,  Lithuania had a dominating win over Czech Republic 15-5, where the best scorer of the tournament Genrikas Pavliukianecas was able to make 11 of the 15 Lithuanian goals.

Men’s final reqults: 1 – Turkey, 2 – Finland, 3 – Lithuania, 4 – Czech Republic, 5 – Germany, 6 – Belgium, 7 – Sweden, 8 – Ukraine, 9 – Slovenia, 10 –  Spain.

Women’s final results: 1 – Turkey, 2 – Russia, 3 – Ukraine, 4 – Israel, 5 – Sweden, 6 – Denmark, 7 – Finland, 8 – Greece, 9 – Germany, 10 – Spain.

The last three teams among men and women dropped to group B.

A reminder about team rankings. All goalball teams which qualify for Rio 2016 will not be determined until after all regional championships have been played. To make this clear, a team will first qualify as a regional champion and after that then the list of teams from Seoul will be taken into consideration. The three top men’s teams and two top women’s teams who have not already qualified as a regional champion will then be granted a spot in Rio.

We would like to thank all involved in this tournament for their hard work and dedication. Such tournaments could not go ahead without the hard work of administration staff, referees, officials, volunteers, athletes and support staff. We thank you all for your great dedication to the sport of goalball.

For more information please contact Marina Dynda, General secretary of Lithuanian Blind Sports Federation, [email protected]

Results: http://www.lasfinfo.lt/en/category/results/
Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T67sGKJAmSA&feature=youtu.be