{"id":28513,"date":"2016-09-11T02:05:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T02:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/rio-paralympics-algeria-goalball-team-absence\/"},"modified":"2016-09-11T02:04:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-11T02:04:34","slug":"rio-paralympics-algeria-goalball-team-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/rio-paralympics-algeria-goalball-team-absence\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Paralympics: Algeria goalball team absence investigated"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has said it is investigating why the Algerian women’s goalball team failed to arrive in Rio in time for matches against the US and Israel.}<\/p>\n

Seven members have not yet turned up, allegedly because of transport issues.<\/p>\n

But there are suspicions the Algeria team wanted to boycott the match against Israel because of longstanding tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Goalball is a sport for the visually impaired involving a ball with bells.<\/p>\n

Algeria had been due to play the US on Friday, and Israel on Saturday, and the seven team members were scheduled to leave a training camp in Poland for Rio last Monday.<\/p>\n

The IPC says the team claims to have missed a bus which led to them missing a flight. They allegedly did not manage to rebook it in time because of a public holiday in Algeria.<\/p>\n

“It’s an interesting account they have delivered to us,” IPC spokesman Craig Spence told the BBC.<\/p>\n

“To have five days travelling to Rio, it’s a long time. I’ve missed connections in the past, and you usually get there within 24 hours,” he said.<\/p>\n

{{‘Politics seeping into Paralympics’}}<\/p>\n

The Times of Israel suggests the Algerian absence is “likely to avoid an Israel draw”.<\/p>\n

“It is a great shame that politics has also seeped into the Paralympics,” the paper quotes the head of the Israeli Paralympic Committee, Danny Ben-Abu, as saying.<\/p>\n

The issue has received some reaction on social media too.<\/p>\n

The IPC says it will check the facts and act accordingly.<\/p>\n

“If, as many people believe, this is a political protest, we can take some form of action against them,” Craig Spence says.<\/p>\n

“It could be a slap on the wrist, or we could remove the goalball team from the tournament altogether,” he added.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, both the US and Israel have been awarded a 10-0 win and three points each for the unplayed matches.<\/p>\n

Goalball is played by two teams of three visually impaired players, using a ball with bells inside. The object of the game is to throw the ball into the opposing team’s net, while defenders attempt to block it with their bodies.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has said it is investigating why the Algerian women’s goalball team failed to arrive in Rio in time for matches against the US and Israel.} Seven members have not yet turned up, allegedly because of transport issues. But there are suspicions the Algeria team wanted to boycott the match against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28513"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28513"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}