![]() ![]() A few of her colleagues had begun dabbling in the then-unknown sport, which had recently made its debut at the 2015 ASEAN Para Games in Singapore. During the break between junior college and university, she got a job at Dialogue in the Dark. The way she started playing goalball wasn’t particularly dramatic. “Like a spoilt camera lens,” she explains, with the air of having done so a hundred times before. Like her dad, she has aniridia, which essentially means she has no iris. Her vision loss was inherited - both her parents are fully blind. She’s not a people person by nature, but has gotten better with age and experience. She has a sister who also used to compete, but quit the team to start a family. She works at Athlete Development, an organisation that provides coaching and programmes for athletes, as a facilitator. ![]() ![]() Hung’s manner is amiable her speech filled with a generous smattering of Singlish - lahs and lors of the fashion that immediately put you at ease. It’s hard to reconcile that with the woman speaking to me over Zoom. The 27-year-old is one of the team’s most experienced players, a pioneer in her own right, having been instrumental in forming the national goalball chapter. Hung’s was the name I was given when I requested to speak with a local goalball player in hopes of finding out more about the sport. The first time I speak to Joan Hung, it’s over Zoom. “Quiet,” the referee barks, and the court falls silent as the sound of her starting whistle rolls across the playing field. You get down onto the ground, your palms pressed onto the floor and your dominant leg stretched out beside you. You toss it from hand to hand, around your waist, double-checking your grip.įinally, you take your place beside your teammates. You do warm-ups with the ball, testing its size (roughly that of a basketball) and its weight (1.5kg). You put on your equipment: knee guards, elbow guards. Goals set up on each side run the width of the playing area, both guarded by three defenders. You step up to the field - an indoor pitch 18 by nine metres wide, about two-thirds the size of a basketball court. ![]()
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