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by World Baseball Softball Confederation, www.wbsc.co
The Spanish Baseball and Softball Real Federation (RFEBS) has announced that the first Indoor Wheelchair Softball competition has been organised in Valencia.
The wheelchair softball match was staged in cooperation with the Fenix Club of Valencia, the Valencia Adapted Sports Federation (FESA) — an organisation specialising in tailoring sport competition for physically challenged individuals — and the local Rangers softball club.
Spain’s first indoor wheelchair softball match served as an “introduction” as part of a larger overall strategic-plan in establishing a Wheelchair School of Softball in Spain that would organise trainings and competitions regularly, helping to increase access to sport by providing another attractive option for individuals with physical challenges to enjoy sport and be empowered by it.
“The WBSC congratulates the Valencia organisers for realising Spain’s first wheelchair softball match,” said WBSC co-President Don Porter.
“This is a great day for the ‘new’ type of athlete — not only in Spain, but in general. As we see with the Paralympic Games now being staged, part of the duties and power of sport is to reduce limitations in society, to evolve our definition of ‘athlete’ and to reach everybody equally — spreading the educational-, cultural- and social values of sport worldwide.
“The WBSC is honoured and proud to have softball at the service of such a diverse and differently talented populations, and we are committed to growing more opportunities for everybody everywhere to engage in sport, and in both baseball and softball,” expressed Porter.
World Baseball Softball Confederation officials continue to underline that both baseball and softball have properties that can easily be adapted to various indoor/outdoor environments and can be practised by people of all ages and abilities — and by both genders and across all social and economic conditions.
Wheelchair softball recently obtained a milestone with the first European Wheelchair Softball Championship held in Prague, Czech Republic.