A bird that is hunting in the night, with extremely sharp ears, beautiful, noble and European – night owl has been selected to be the symbol of the most important event in Lithuanian Paralympic history – the 2015 IBSA Goalball European Championships men and women A, to be held in Kaunas, Lithuania, from the 5th to the 12th of July.

“We wanted to leave behind other Olympic logos, where most often man’s silhouette and motion is shown. I was looking for an animal, plant or bird to become a symbol and unexpected correlation for blind sport. The first association with goalball for me was a bat (flitter mouse) which flies in the night and orientates according to sound. But the danger was that bat can be understood in childish way as a symbol for superman or batman. Suddenly the bat turned into an owl and I said – why not? An owl is a bird that hunts at night, a beautiful, noble and European bird. That is how the night owl logo for the IBSA Goalball European Championships was born. At the same time the idea was not to make a zoo-like logo, so I incorporated elements from Goalball: hands, ball, eyeshades“, independent designer Lina Sasnauskaite explained.

Lithuanian Blind Sports Federation will print this logo embossed, so that blind people can feel it.

“We chose this night owl logo because it looks really unique, is based on a strong idea and has no boring elements: a man, black eyeshades and motion in attack or defence position”, said Linas Balsys, President of the Lithuanian Blind Sports Federation.

The 2015 IBSA Goalball European Championships will take place on 5-12 of July in Kaunas, Lithuania. The participating men’s teams are Lithuania, Spain, Turkey, Germany, Czech Republic, Finland, Belgium, Slovenia, Sweden and Ukraine, while the women’s tournament will see Russia, Turkey, Israel, Finland, Germany, Ukraine, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Greece fight for the title of European champions.

The President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite is a patron of the 2015 IBSA Goalball European Championships.

For more information please contact Linas Balsys, President of the Lithuanian Blind Sports Federation, tel. +370 670 80735, [email protected].