National Goalball Championships Return After Three-Year Hiatus

Twenty teams from across the United States converged on Fort Wayne, Indiana, July 15-17, to compete for the coveted title of national champion at the 2022 U.S. Association of Blind Athletes’ National Goalball Championships. Due to the COVID pandemic in 2020, this marked the first national championships held since 2019. It also marked a return to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Site at Turnstone Center, the training base for the USA Men’s and Women’s Goalball Teams, for the first time since 2018. Three days of spirited competition and camaraderie ended with the awarding of team medals and individual awards…  Read More

Eleven Tokyo 2020 Paralympians Among 16 Goalball Sport Ambassadors Named by USABA

Colorado Springs, Colo. (May 19, 2022) – The U.S. Association of Blind Athletes (USABA), recently certified as the National Governing Body for the Paralympic sport of goalball, is pleased to announce 16 individuals who will serve as goalball sport ambassadors. Throughout the year, the ambassadors will assist USABA in spreading awareness around goalball programming and other initiatives via digital content and in-person appearances. The 16 athletes selected include 11 Paralympians and nine Paralympic medalists. Ten of the 11 Paralympians competed at the most recent Paralympic Games in Tokyo last summer. The nine Tokyo Paralympians include Zach Buhler (Huntington, Ind.), Lisa…  Read More

Two Additional Goalball Paralympians Elected to USABA Board

(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) – As the newly-certified national governing body for the Paralympic team sports of goalball and blind soccer, the United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA) has announced the election of two additional athlete representatives to its Board of Directors. Paralympians Zach Buhler (Huntington, Ind.) and Eliana Mason (Beaverton, Ore.) will serve as goalball athlete directors alongside fellow goalball Paralympians Matt Simpson (Charlottesville, Va.) and Calahan Young (Pittsburgh, Pa.), giving the board of directors four athletes among its 12 members. “The expansion of athlete representation to 33 percent of our board of directors ensures that the voices of…  Read More

USA Goalball Teams Medal at Americas Championships

The USA Men’s and Women’s Goalball Teams both came away with medals around their necks at the conclusion of the IBSA Goalball Americas Championships that took place Feb. 18-22 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The U.S. men’s team won the silver medal, while the U.S. women’s team came away with the bronze. Most importantly, the men’s team achieved qualification for this summer’s IBSA Goalball World Championships and will join the women’s team which had pre-qualified by virtue of their silver medal at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. The world championships will take place June 6-18 in Hangzhou, China, and will play a…  Read More

Finding Team After Blindness

Goalball player off to Brazil for tourney BLAKE SEBRING | For The Journal Gazette When Huntington's Zach Buhler was 12 years old, he started losing his sight because of the genetic disorder Stickler syndrome. His whole life outside of school was built around football, baseball, basketball, track and cross country, but everything changed. “I always wanted to be something big in sports,” Buhler said. “When I lost my vision, playing basketball is a little difficult when you can't see the ball. When that got taken away, it did a number on me, to say the least.” Understandably, Buhler figured his…  Read More