Aussie flag ready to fly in Asia Pacific Oceania 2013 Powerchair Football champs

AUSTRALIA and Japan will face off this week to find the best Powerchair Football team in the Oceania zone.

AUSTRALIA and Japan will face off this week to find the best football team in the zone.

These athletes are different to your average footballer, each coming with a different disability and competing in an electric wheelchair for the Asia Pacific Oceania 2013 Powerchair Football zone championships.

Twenty-four-year-old Parramatta athlete Ben Keyte will represent Australia at the championships.

"There are two Aussie teams and two Japanese. There are six games plus the final," Keyte said.

"The match against the other Aussie team will go either way.

"The Japanese are going to be very tough to beat, because they have a massive tournament in Japan."

Keyte is one of 250 Australians living with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, a condition that causes him to have no muscle bulk, which means his joints do not develop either.

He was born with the condition, but because of its rarity was not diagnosed until he was a couple of years old.

Keyte said this was his fourth year playing football, with the sport already taking him to the world cup in Paris in 2011. "I never thought I would play for Australia," he said.

"Up until this sport, there's been no real sport for people in power-driven wheelchairs that has international tournaments.

"The one thing I wanted to do with my best mate in Paris was we wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower. So we did that."

Keyte said he hopes to one day see the sport in the Paralympics, which is currently a good chance of being included in 2020.

The championships start with an opening ceremony today at 2pm, with the grand finals scheduled for Australia Day on Saturday.