Blind Sports Australia (BSA; 2010+), formerly the Australian Blind Sports Federation (ABSF) was formed in 1980 as the national body to coordinate sport for the blind and vision-impaired in Australia. It encourages and provides access to international competition in world blind and multi-disabled championships for sports recognised by the

International Blind Sports Federation The International Blind Sports Federation () is a non-profit organisation founded 1981 in Paris, France. It was formerly known as the International Blind Sports Association. IBSA's mission is to promote the full integration of blind and parti ...

(IBSA) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). BSA is headquartered near

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. Blind and vision impaired athletes and teams participate in national championships in

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: * Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...

goalball Goalball is a team sport designed specifically for athletes with a vision impairment. Participants compete in teams of three, and try to throw a ball that has bells embedded inside of it into the opponents' goal. The ball is thrown by hand a ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo"). ...

, karate,

lawn bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

powerlifting Powerlifting is a strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athlete attempting a maximal weight single-lift effo ...

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically ...

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cou ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

tandem cycling A tandem bicycle or twin is a form of bicycle (occasionally a tricycle) designed to be ridden by more than one person. The term tandem refers to the seating arrangement (fore to aft, not side by side), not the number of riders. Patents relat ...

tenpin bowling Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first roll ...

water skiing Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on two skis or one ski. The sport requires suffic ...

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

, and

winter sports Winter sports or winter activities are competitive sports or non-competitive recreational activities which are played on snow or ice. Most are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally, such games were only played in cold are ...

Members

Member organisations

*Australian Blind Bowlers Association (ABBA) since 1980 *Australian Blind Cricket Council (ABCC) since 1951 *Blind Golf Australia (BGA) since 1992 *Goalball Australia (GA) since 1980

Member associations

The following organisations conduct national championships on behalf of the BSA: * VISACT * Blind Sporting Association of New South Wales
Blind Sport and Recreation Victoria
* Sporting Wheelies and Disabled Association of Queensland * Association of South Australian Blind Sporting Clubs * Association for the Blind of WA Altogether there are 2,600 vision-impaired athletes in whose interests BSA acts at the national and international level for competition, coaching, sport psychology and program development. BSA athletes are current world champions or world record holders in field athletics, tandem cycling, tenpin bowling, powerlifting, swimming, water skiing and alpine skiing.

References

Bibliography

External links