Erkki Ilmari Miinala (born 19 August 1986 in

Kemi Kemi (; ; ; ) is a cities of Finland, town and municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located approximately from the city of Tornio and the Finland–Sweden border, Swedish border. The distance to Oulu is to the south and t ...

) is a Finnish

goalball Goalball is a team sport designed specifically for athletes with a visual impairment, vision impairment. Participants compete in teams of three, and try to throw a ball with bells embedded inside it into the opponents' goal. The ball is throw ...

player. He began playing at age ten, but did not become serious about the sport until 19. His visual impairment is due to

retinitis pigmentosa Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a member of a group of genetic disorders called inherited retinal dystrophy (IRD) that cause loss of vision. Symptoms include trouble seeing at night and decreasing peripheral vision (side and upper or lower visua ...

which is an inherited, degenerative eye disease that causes severe vision impairment. Outside goalball he plays drums in a rock band and works as a transcriber. He was a member of Finland's gold medal-winning men's goalball team at the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international Multi-sport event, multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Sum ...

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* 1986 births Living people Finnish male goalball players Paralympic goalball players for Finland Paralympic gold medalists for Finland Paralympic medalists in goalball Goalball players at the 2008 Summer Paralympics Goalball players at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Goalball players at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Sportspeople from Kemi {{Goalball-bio-stub