London 2012 Spots up for Grabs at Goalball European Championships

One men’s and one women’s qualification spot for the London 2012 Paralympic Games will be up for grabs when the IBSA Goalball European Championships kick off Wednesday (19 October) in Assens, Denmark.

In both competitions, 10 teams will be split into two pools for two days of round-robin play before Friday’s quarter-final and semi-final rounds. The gold and bronze-medal contests will then take place Saturday.

Lithuania, Spain, Belgium, Denmark and Turkey make up the men’s Pool A, while Slovenia, Sweden, Hungary, Finland and Germany make up the men’s Pool B.

Lithuania, which won silver at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, already qualified for London 2012 with a top-three finish at the 2010 World Championships. Finland, Turkey and Belgium already earned their spots with top-four finishes at the 2010 Paralympic Qualification Tournament.

This means that the highest finisher in the European Championships that has not already qualified for London 2012 will progress to next year’s Paralympic Games.

Meanwhile, Great Britain, Sweden, Israel, Ukraine and Turkey will compose women’s Pool X, and Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia and Spain will be in women’s Pool Y.

Sweden’s women already qualified for the Paralympic Games with a top-three finish at the 2010 World Championships, as did Finland with a top-two performance at the 2010 Paralympic Qualification Tournament. Great Britain reserved a spot for itself, too, as the host nation of the Games.

The remaining seven women’s teams will all be fighting for that one extra European spot in the field of 10 women’s teams at London 2012.