Two days of hotly contested goalball action has already taken place at the 2015 IBSA World Games.

Day one only featured four matches prior to the opening ceremony of the event. The top match here was the battle between the host nation and Spain. It was a closely fought game with the Koreans keen to impress in front of their home crowd. Impress they did but unfortunately they didn’t end up on the right side of the winner’s card. Spain took this match 3-2.

Elsewhere both Turkey and Iran were convincing winners in their opening games against their lower ranked opponents; Mexico and Australia respectively. The match between Lithuania and Venezuela was postponed due to the late arrival of some competitors.

Day 2 was the first full day of action. Not only did the men play a full schedule but the women’s competition also commenced.

Men Pool A saw a lot of routine matches with very convincing score lines. The closest match was that between Germany and Sweden. Sweden did take the honours here with a comfortable three goal advantage.

The situation wasn’t very different in Pool B. However, they did have two very close matches. The highlight was that between Canada and Japan. Both teams are trying hard to make an impact during the tournament. Japan scraped the win here 6-5. The other close match was between China and Belgium. Two teams who have both attended the last two Paralympic Games. When these teams faced off in London 2012 it was a 0-0 draw. This time a lot more goals were scored and it was China who had a couple more than the Belgians. They won 7-5.

Turning to the women’s side, the feature matches in Pool X were those between Finland and Greece (2 all draw) and Denmark and Ukraine (Denmark just won 3-2). All other matches went in the favour of the expected winners.

Pool Y had two sets of identical score lines on day one of the women’s competition. Both Japan and Canada won 6-1 over Algeria and Korea respectively while Great Britain and Germany defeated their opponents, Australia and Sweden, 5-1. The closest match was that between Japan and Korea which the Paralympic champions took 2-0.

For full results from day one and two, please see below.

Results:

Day 1

Male

Pool A

Turkey 9 – 5 Mexico

Spain 3 – 2 Korea

Pool B

Iran 10 – 0 Australia

Lithuania – Venezuela – not played due to delayed flights

Day 2

MALE:

Group A:

Czech Republic 15-5 Egypt

Germany 3-6 Sweden

Turkey 13-3 South Korea

Mexico 1-8 Spain

Egypt 3-12 Sweden

Czech Republic 14-5 Germany

Group B:

Lithuania 10-0 Venezuela

Canada 5-6 Japan

China 7-5 Belgium

Lithuania 14-4 Australia

Venezuela 1-11 Iran

FEMALE:

Pool x:

China – Ghana

Spain 2-10 Israel

Finland 2-2 Greece

Denmark 3-2 Ukraine

China 7-1 Greece

Pool Y:

Japan 6-1 Algeria

South Korea 1-6 Canada

Great Britain 5-1 Australia

Germany 5-1 Sweden

Japan 2-0 South Korea