History set to be made in Thailand for the inaugural World Disability Snooker Championship

A red-letter day for the prosperity of disability snooker, players representing 17 different nations and five different continents are set to cue up in Nonthaburi between February 25 to March 2 with ambitions of becoming a world champion.

The momentous occasion has been realised by global body World Disability Billiards and Snooker (WDBS) in conjunction with hosts Sports Association for the Disabled of Thailand under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King (SPADT).

WDBS - an umbrella organisation of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) - was founded in 2015 with the aim to give more disabled people the chance to play cuesports both sociably and competitively. Another of its chief aims is to get snooker back into the Paralympics; snooker was one of the founding sports of the Paralympic movement, and last featured on the programme in Seoul 1988.

The first WDBS event was held in late 2015 at the South West Snooker Academy in Gloucester, England. Since then, the organisation has put on over 300 tournaments across its various classification categories, and in recent times the sport has been able to spread its wings with big competitions across Europe and beyond.

Testament to the progress and success of WDBS, snooker was included in the World Ability Sport Games for the first time in 2023 in Thailand, with the world's top disabled players winning medals at the multi-sport spectacular. The staging of this event has helped pave the way for the upcoming world championship.

WDBS has developed crucial partnerships with other snooker organisations around the world to help spread the word and host tournaments, this includes the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (CBSA) and the European Billiards and Snooker Association (EBSA). Last year, with the support of the EBSA, the first European Disability Snooker Championship took place in Portugal.

In 2019, a four-player disability invitational was held at the home of snooker, the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, which was also shown live on television.

How does the World Disability Snooker circuit and its events work?

Players with a wide range of disabilities compete at WDBS events. Similar to what you would see at the Paralympics, there are several different player categories, with cueists generally playing against people with a similar disability to theirs which helps create a more level-playing field. This means at a WDBS gathering, there are several tournaments being held at the same time.

There are essentially eight different groups that players are placed into after they have been classified by WDBS. These categories are: wheelchair, ambulatory, intellectual and sensory (visual/deaf). For more information on how it works, please visit the WDBS website here.

WDBS events are usually held over long weekends which incorporate an 'open day' that introduces new people to the sport where they can learn about it in a pressure-free and fun environment with qualified coaches.

In recent years, a ranking system for each category has also been created, adding further structure to the circuit and meaning players can strive to become the world number one.

Entrants from the USA to Australia, Iceland to Libya are scheduled to be on show in South-East Asia next week for the 2025 World Disability Snooker Championship.

To follow the progress of the competitions in Thailand, please visit here.