Jenny Blow
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Interviewed as a guest
Episode 252
Goalball and the Tokyo Paralympics. Jenny explains goalball ("like reverse dodgeball, but everyone's wearing a blindfold", a 1.25kg ball with a bell, three players defending a nine-metre goal), how she fell into the sport by chance at university while training as a teacher, and her three Games: London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020/21. Australia beat world champions Russia to reach the quarterfinals, the best result in the history of Australian women's goalball, before losing 10-6 to eventual gold medallists Turkey, the best score any team managed against them. She talks about the team's minimal funding (players pay their own way), the Channel 7 coverage, training alone in Melbourne as the only Aussie Belle in the state, taking goalball into schools, and her role with Blind Sports Australia. On parkrun: she became a "COVID runner", was introduced to parkrun through the Achilles Melbourne running group (Monica Wong took her to her first one at Albert Park in late 2019), has done 10 parkruns at six locations including Parkville, Studley and Fingal Bay, and ran a half marathon with Achilles runners. Asked what parkrun could do better for vision impaired runners, she suggests events promote more visibly that people can contact them for a guide or support. She was recorded from hotel quarantine after returning from Tokyo.