At 38 years old, Doug Ripley will finally have his chance to compete for Olympic gold.
After 16 years of training and waiting, Ripley, former hometown athlete, is in London this week with Team Canada preparing to take on Belgium in the first round of goalball matches in the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
Ripley is a visually impaired athlete who grew up in Powell River and graduated from Max Cameron Secondary School in 1992. He started playing goalball competitively in 2003 after a string of achievements in 400-metre sprinting. In 2007 he returned to Powell River to participate in the BC Disability Games.
Goalball is a fast-paced sport played by both athletes with visual impairment and sighted players. Played three on three, players wearing eyeshades roll a heavy rubber ball, which has a bell inside, and try to put it into the opponents’ goal, a nine-metre wide net. The game is played in silence as the only way for players to track the ball’s location on the court, which is about the same size as an indoor volleyball court, is to listen for the bell’s ring. Players wear eyeshades to level the playing field for all players. “It’s not a halfway kind of sport,” said Ripley. “It’s full on.”
Players have to be able to slide their bodies across the floor to block the opponents’ shots which sometimes are at speeds of 80 kilometres per hour. Matches are 24 minutes in length with two 12-minute halves.
Ripley was on the Team Canada alternate list for the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.
He said his hopes are high for the London games, and is relying on his experience as the captain of Team BC to help him and his teammates earn a place on the podium for Canada.
To prepare for the games, Ripley and his teammates played in four international tournaments in Europe and participated in two training camps. Ripley also practices twice a week and works out in the gym four times a week.
“It’s very physical,” said Ripley. “You’ve got to have agility and awareness.”
Team Canada men’s squad has been seeded in Pool B of the tournament and will take on Belgium, Iran, South Korea and China, who took goalball gold in Beijing. The tournament begins on August 30 with Canada facing off against Belgium. The gold-medal match will be played September 7.
Men’s goalball has been a Paralympic event since the 1976 games in Toronto and women’s goalball at the 1984 games in New York.
