Today is the day that nine European nations start their path to Rio 2016 but by the end of the weekend the dream will be already over for six of these nations.
 
The reason for this is that the 2013 IBSA Goalball European Championships Men C will be taking place in Worcester, Great Britain. The championships commence today and will finish on Sunday afternoon.
 
The C division is made up of new Goalball nations, nations who are rebuilding and nations who currently don’t have much experience on the big stage.
 
There are nine nations competing for the top three positions at this tournament. The three podium nations will be promoted to the IBSA Goalball European B division and therefore still on the road to Rio. One may say that this is a tough battle and that it is but it isn’t impossible to be an A nation in two years. At last year’s B championships, two of the nations who were promoted to the A division were competing at the C championships in 2011.
 
Competing nations include: Great Britain (host nation), Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Russia.
 
Headed by a new coach, Great Britain will be looking to take the valuable big match experience that they gained in London last year to lift them up to become a B nation.
 
The three nations who were relegated at the end of last year’s B championships; Italy, Russia and Bulgaria, will all be fighting to get themselves back to the B level and show that they don’t belong in this group.
 
Other nations such as The Netherlands will be using the championships to get valuable experience with a new developing team.
 
We wish all nine nations and all officials the best of luck over the following four days and fair game.
 
Matches on today’s schedule are:
14:00 Great Britain v Azerbaijan
15:00 Russia v Bulgaria
16:00 Portugal v Greece
17:00 Croatia v Netherlands
18:00 Italy v Great Britain
19:00 Azerbaijan v Russia
20:00 Bulgaria v Portugal