How Paralympic athlete Amy Burk fell in love with the “incredibly crazy” sport of goalball
The current10:37Meet Amy Burk, Canada’s goalball star
Amy Burk remembers the tension her team felt as they competed in the goalball final at the Parapan American Games in Chile last year, knowing that a win could secure them a spot at the Paralympics in Paris.
“I was sitting on the bench for the last part of the game. And every time I looked at the clock, I think only two seconds had passed – it felt like an eternity,” said Burk, who is originally from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and now lives in Ottawa.
Burk has long been a member of Canada’s national goalball team, a sport in which visually impaired athletes attempt to throw a ball into the opponent’s net while the opposing team tries to block it with only their bodies. The teams wear blindfolds and listen for bells embedded in the ball to ring across the volleyball-court-sized area.
Emma-Leigh Reinke scored a hat trick, including two successful penalty kicks, and Canada claimed a 4-3 victory in the gold medal final in women’s goalball at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago. The victory also secures Canada a berth at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris.
In Chile, Burk and her team secured a 4-3 victory over the USA and gave Canada its first gold medal in goalball at the Parapan Am Games after three bronze medals in a row.
“It was an incredible moment,” said Burk The current Guest presenter Connie Walker
Burk was born with albinism, a genetic condition that affects a person’s hair, skin and eye color and can often lead to vision problems. She will captain Canada’s goalball team at the Paralympics for the fifth time next week in Paris, but told Walker that she once thought the sport was too “incredibly crazy” to continue pursuing. Here’s part of their conversation.
How did you get into sports?
If you are visually impaired, you will be assigned an itinerant instructor who will be with you throughout your schooling and will ensure that you have the right assistive devices when you need them. And my itinerant instructor was on the board of ParaSport and Recreation PEI.
(He thought) I would fit in well, and they approached me and walked me through the whole thing. I went to a couple of practices and thought it was incredibly crazy to throw a ball at you when you couldn’t see. And I was only 12 at the time, so I was a little intimidated. I said, ‘No, that wasn’t for me.'”
And then the next year – I don’t know what happened – I realized I hadn’t given the sport a fair chance. I love sports and I knew the older I got, the harder it would be to continue to play at a high level with sighted peers. So I thought, “You know what? I really should give the sport a second chance.”
I fell in love with it and it has drastically shaped my life ever since.
Your team won the award for the trendiest moment at the Canadian Sport Awards last year after winning in Chile. What does it mean to you that the sport is finding a bigger audience in this way?
The media attention our team has received over the last year has been phenomenal. When people hear we’re going to the Paralympics, they often ask, what sport? And as soon as you say goalball, it’s like a rabbit in the headlights – nobody knows.
(Now) they saw it on TV during the games in Santiago, they read the articles, they saw the hottest moments. And people are more aware of it now.
Because it’s one of the few team sports for blind and visually impaired athletes, this funding is great because then we can get these younger kids and continue to grow our program. Because that’s definitely one of the things we struggle with across the country: recruiting.
Although Charlottetown resident Amy Burk was born with albinism, which left her visually impaired, she has been a standout athlete throughout her life. At age 12, she discovered goalball, a sport that will take her to her fifth Paralympics in Paris this year. CBC News caught up with Burk to talk about her love of the sport.
What would you say to a young athlete – visually impaired or not – who hears this and looks up to you as a sports hero?
Don’t do what I did when I was a little boy. I saw that sport and I said, “No way.” So you have to give things a chance. And you just have to try something different.
And I was very lucky that I asked again and tried it when I was young… You should never give up on something just because it seems different or difficult.
I was also embarrassed that I was visually impaired because I was the only visually impaired person in all the schools. I didn’t want to be labelled as the other child because I have albinism. But now it’s also this child who is playing something really strange.
I’m so grateful that I somehow got through that, but I really wish it had never gotten to this point, that I would have just accepted it and thought, “You know what? This looks really cool and I don’t care what other people think.”
