The International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA), is a nonprofit organization founded 1981 in Paris, France. Its mission is to promote the full integration of blind and partially sighted people in society through sport and to encourage people with a visual impairment to take up and practise sports. IBSA is a full member of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
It is an independent international federation in charge of fifteen sports for the blind and partially sighted, including: Athletics, Alpine skiing, Goalball, Futsal (five-a-side football), Judo, Biathlon, Swimming, Powerlifting, Shooting, Archery, Showdown, Ten-pin bowling, Nine-pin bowling, Nordic skiing, and Cycling.
The IBSA organizes the IBSA World Championships and Games, held every four years. The first edition took place 1998 in Madrid, Spain followed by the event in 2003 at Quebec, Canada to be held from then on one year before the Paralympics.
Famous quotes containing the words blind, sports and/or federation:
“A dreamlike feebleness by which the blind race of man is hampered.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)
“Women realize that we are living in an ungoverned world. At heart we are all pacifists. We should love to talk it over with the war-makers, but they would not understand. Words are so inadequate, and we realize that the hatred must kill itself; so we give our men gladly, unselfishly, proudly, patriotically, since the world chooses to settle its disputes in the old barbarous way.”
—General Federation Of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)