The UCAL annual car rally, where drivers are given authorised blind navigators who read maps in Braille, was held recently. Visually impaired navigators are certified by the National Association for the Blind.
The 50.03 kilometre rally is based on the time, speed and distance format. The rally takes about 124 minutes. There were four categories — expert, for teams that have won earlier; regular, for teams that have participated earlier; novices; and all ladies.
The first ever tandem bicycling event in the U.A.E. was held on 16 February 2007. The cycling challenge was organised to raise money for research into retina degeneration and hereditary eye diseases.
This was the first time that riders who are visually impaired had ventured out on the roads of U.A.E. The visually impaired participants rode on tandems as the ‘stoker’ (in the rear position) with a sighted person as the ‘captain’ (at the front). The teams completed the 220 kilometres coast-to-coast ride from Dubai to Fujairah in nine hours.
Bharatiya Welfare Association for the Blind’ (Gulbarga, Karnataka) is offering karate training to visually impaired boys to equip them with self-defence skills.
The training programme was inaugurated by Amrita Somnath, national referee for Karate and an international karate player from Kerala, recently.
She said karate is a means for self-defence, not attack. It creates tolerance and inculcates discipline in a person, she added.
Association president, Dattu Agarwal, said it was for the first time in North Karnataka this unique programme has been taken up.
When openers from the National Association for the Blind (N.A.B.) team from Silvassa, making its debut at the ‘All-Gujarat Blind Peoples' Cricket Tournament’ held in Vadodara, (Gujarat) stepped on the field in the finals, no one knew it was a brand new champion in the making.
The Silvassa team, chasing the 101-run target put up by N.A.B. Idar, won the title with eight wickets in hand, winding up the game in just 10 overs.
Hilton-Barber is the first blind person to fly over the English Channel in a microlight, holds the British duel microlight high-altitude record and has wing-walked on a fully aerobatic 450 HP Boeing Steersman bi-plane.
He has endless feats to his credit, such as being the first blind person to do the solo kamikaze skeleton run down the 5G Olympic bobsleigh track in Lillehammer, Norway, and has also participated in the toughest desert ultra-marathon in the world through Death Valley, California.
BBC NI recently teamed up with the RNIB NI, the IFA’s Grassroots Department and the George Best Foundation to introduce the initiative at Northern Ireland’s home internationals.<br><br>A competition was run to find two people to become professionally trained commentators at Northern Ireland games.<br><br>Jackie Fullerton and Joel Taggart had to judge entries of five-minute commentaries describing the imaginary moment your team scored the winning goal in the 2006 World Cup.Robin Peake from Portrush and Brian Elliott from Newtownards won the competition.<br><b
The uniqueness about the event was that the route was kept under wraps and it was made known to the rally drivers only during the course of the rally.
The 70 kilometer long journey led by blind navigators commenced from the National Association of the Blind building on Worli Seaface, Mumbai. They guided the sighted drivers through a series of checkpoints, highlighting their skill and ability.
England's Graham Gooch and New Zealand's Martin Crowe have taken on junior blind cricketers in a friendly game at Rushutters Bay, Sydney.
The cricketing greats are in Australia to participate in the beach cricket tournament, but managed to sneak in a game against the vision-impaired kids organised by the Advanced Hair Studio.
The former English captain says he was astounded by the younger players' ability.
"They have a special ball which has a sort of bell inside of it, and you roll the ball along the ground," he explained.
A daredevil woman who is gradually losing her sight is taking part in a charity skydive to raise money for the charity which gave her vital help when her life was turned upside down.
Francesca Davies, 42, of Great Waldingfield, near Sudbury, will fall two miles through the sky in the tandem dive with an instructor to support the West Suffolk Voluntary Association for the Blind, which was there for her when she lost the sight in her left eye 11 years ago.
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