Showdown (sport)

Table ball or Showdown is the Air Hockey similar sport for blind and visually impaired people, which is played in 30 countries. Sometimes it is also called " blind table tennis ".

Similar to the table football game field is bounded by a 14 cm high band, in which the narrow side openings are made as gates, the corners of the field are rounded. At the height of the center line of an upright board is mounted above the side walls, the so-called middle band. This prevents the ball during the shot exceeds the height of the side band. If the ball hits the surface of the center band or he leaves the board, there are penalties that are awarded to the opponents.

Kit includes a noise -generating ball (slightly larger than a ping pong ball ), elongated rectangular wooden bat and gloves. Since there are different degrees of blindness, each player wears a dark glasses.

In competitions you play with sighted referee who announces the goals and points. A goal scores two points for certain violations of the rules of the opponent gets one single point.

A sentence is usually played to eleven. At the score of 11 to 10 the rate is continued until a two-point lead is achieved as a player reaches 17 points or the maximum record length is exceeded 15 minutes (the latter does not apply to tournament finals ). A match has two or three winning sets depending on the agreement.

The Blind Canadians Joe Lewis invented the game in the 60s. Table ball is currently not a sport of the Paralympics.