The Paralympic Games was the only tournament in the month of September and whilst there wasn’t any huge change in the rankings, the twenty teams involved had varying movements up and down the tables.

Brazil replace China on top of the Women’s list with Turkey and USA jumping over Japan in to 3rd and 4th spots.  Nine of the teams that competed in Rio find themselves in the top thirteen teams.  The only exception is Algeria who have dropped three places to 24th.

Outside those teams, Greece have dropped from 15th to 19th but we can expect them to climb again after their performance at Euro B earlier this month.  Hungary also dropped from 28th to 32nd.  They too may see their fortunes change on October. 

On the Men’s side, the top five teams all remain in the same positions.  The big mover in the top ten was USA who climbed to 6th from 9th.  all teams that competed in Rio are now sitting in the top fourteen teams.  Canada were the big improvers, going from 19th in to 9th.

The climber for the month is Russia from 32nd to 25th and the biggest loss of positions came from Israel who dropped from 11th to 18th.

We have received a lot of feedback whilst in Brazil and later in Sydney for the Australian Goalball Championships (there were a few US people there).  Whilst we are happy to receive feedback about the rankings, the Sub-Committee would prefer that the constructive feedback come with possible solutions.  This will at least give us something to work with.

The Sub-Committee has some ideas for change that we plan to canvass amongst the coaching network leading up to January 2017.  We think it is important that we consider what each game should be assessed on rather than questioning the position of a particular country on the list.  This line of questioning does not provide a solution.

The full lists can be viewed from our documents page on this website.