The Swedish boys and South Korean girls enjoyed a perfect opening day at the 2019 International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) Goalball Youth World Championships in Penrith, Australia, on Monday (5 August), winning both of their opening games.

In the girls three goals from Min-Kyoung Park gave South Korea a slender two goal lead at the end of the first half in their game against Thailand.

Neither team could pull away in a closely matched tie. But South Korea came out fighting after the break, doubling their lead before Thailand could find the back of their net again.
Ae-Lim Ji joined Park in the scoring, swapping honours throughout the half to add a further six goals to Thailand’s four. The final score was 10-6.

South Korea also won their second match against Germany, but by a much smaller margin.

The German defence proved difficult to penetrate and Ji and Hyun-Chae Bong were the only two players who managed to get the ball over the line. Both goals came in the first half as the Germans doubled-down.

Franziska Weber managed to get one back for the Germans following the first whistle but it was the South Koreans who won the defensive battle with a 2-1 win.

Elsewhere in the girls tournament, defending champions Australia came up against an ever-improving Brazilian side in the opening match of the tournament.

As the hosts of the last Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the south American team have been building their programme and their quality showed on Monday.

But Australia were a good match and were determined to capitalise on the home advantage.

There was nothing to separate the teams at the end of the first half. Three goals from Australia’s Molly Smith were equalled by Monica Santos and Danielle Longhini.

But Brazil’s half-time team talk clearly lit a fire under their attack, scoring an impressive eight goals to Australia’s four after the break. Five came from Longhini and two more for Santos before Leticia Silva rounded off the Brazilian scoring.

Makayla Reilly and Alice Kingston were the scorers of Australia’s four second-half goals, netting two each, but a fight-back was not to be. The final score was 11-7 to Brazil.

Great Britain beat Australia 3-1 in a low scoring game in the hosts second game of the day.
All of the goals came in the second half. Antonia Bunyan opened the scoring for Great Britain and followed up with two more goals to star in her team’s attack.

Smith did get one back to bring the score to 2-1 with just over two minutes left on the clock, but Bunyan sealed the deal just over 60 seconds later.

Boys

Sweden lead the boys group with wins against Thailand and South Korea on Monday.

There was goals aplenty in the clash with Thailand. Olaf Ryberg punched through his opponent’s defence five times in the first half, contributing to a 10-4 lead at the whistle.

Ryberg claimed a further three goals after the break. Oscar Alverstedt added a further two to bring his game total to six and a convincing 15-8 win to Sweden.

Kitsada Thanyawanitphong showed promise as Thailand’s top scorer with five goals.

Sweden then faced a tough challenge from South Korea in their second game of the day. Whilst they ended the first half with a 5-0 lead, their Asian challengers enjoyed a revival in the second 12 minutes.

But Sweden’s buffer was good enough despite South Korea scoring five goals in the second half. Alverstedt took over from Ryberg as Sweden’s top scorer, finding the back of the net five times.

South Korea did however emerge the victors in their game against Australia. See Bok-Hong was the star striker with five of his teams 10 goals without reply from the hosts.

Brazil, the silver medallists from the 2017 edition, overcame Poland 2-0 in their opening game.  

Goals came from Lucas Araujo and Braian Araujo in the first half without reply.

The 2019 IBSA Goalball Youth World Championships run from 5-9 August. Twelve boys and girls teams from eight countries are playing for the title, with Australia the defending champions in the girls.

All games are being shown live on IBSA Goalball’s Facebook page and IBSA’s YouTube channel.