When Australia’s Paralympians set sail for Paris in August, the Australian men’s blind football team and the Australian women’s goalball team will have their feet planted firmly on the ground.

Funding, amongst other issues, impacted their ability to qualify for the Games.

Blind football player Shahram Jazan is the self-described “grandpa” of the team, known as the Bilbies.

The 51-year-old concedes his hopes of representing Australia at the Paralympics are likely over.

“It was always my dream, I wanted to play blind football,” Jazan said.

While the Bilbies have never qualified for a Paralympics, the Aussie Belles could be considered veterans, with five Games under their belt.

A decision to shrink the number of goalball teams competing in Paris, and significant challenges for the squad, meant the Belles missed out on Games qualification.

“We had a core team, a lot of those ladies retired at the end of the Tokyo Paralympics,” Belles coach Simon Smith said.

“Goalball is its own sport, there’s no parent sport that can support goalball.

“At the moment the sport is fully athlete-funded.”

Having been a part of the team in Tokyo, 25-year-old Brodie Benson is one of the few Belles left with Games experience.

She believes the heartbreak of missing out on Paris 2024 can help propel this new generation of athletes towards Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032.

Increasing opportunities

Of the 22 sports at this year’s Games, Australia is likely to be represented in at least 16, equating to 170–175 athletes.

Funding is largely determined by a sport’s historic performance, with Australia currently having eight Paralympic sports that do not receive any high-performance funding.

As well as blind football and goalball, this includes sports like wheelchair fencing, sitting volleyball and para-powerlifting.

Senior performance and talent advisor at Paralympics Australia Tim Matthews is hopeful of this changing in the lead-up to Brisbane.