St. Thomas native Emma Reinke is in South America this week, representing Canada at the 2023 Parapan Am Games in Santiago, Chile.
The six members of the team competed at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and the 2022 world championships.
Emma was Canada’s leading scorer in Tokyo and we asked her about dealing with the pressure when the games begin Saturday.
The competition runs through Nov. 24. Canada is ranked No. 7 in the world and third in the Americas.
Goalball is a sport exclusive to athletes with visual impairments, played by both men and women.
Played in a gym court, the objective of the game is to throw the ball using a bowling motion into the opponent’s net while the opposing players try to block the ball with their bodies.
The 1.25 kilogram ball has noise bells which help orientate the players.
Reinke laughs explaining she “just kind of fell into it” when asked about her introduction to goalball.
That was back in Grade 9 at the W. Ross MacDonald School for the Blind in Brantford.
We asked her about not being able to say ‘No’ when approached to try out for the school’s junior team.
She has been a member of Team Ontario’s women’s goalball team since 2014 and the Canadian national team since 2017.
For 25-year-old Reinke, good time management is essential. Not only with classes and exams at Carleton University in Ottawa, but also as a member of Canada’s national goalball team.
We asked her how it feels to represent Canada on the international stage.
Reinke now lives in Ottawa and is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies at Carleton.
Goalball was invented in 1946 in an effort to rehabilitate veterans with a visual impairment who returned from World War II.
In 1976, it was introduced to the world at the Paralympic Games in Toronto and a women’s tournament was added at the 1984 Paralympic Games.
The Canadian women’s team has been particularly successful with five Paralympic Games medals including back-to-back gold in 2000 and 2004. The men won the silver in 1996.
