Beijing 2008 Wheelchair Basketball Test Event to be Held in January

From 20 to 25 January, the “Good Luck” Beijing 2008 Wheelchair Basketball Test Event will take place at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing, China.

Organized by the Beijing 2008 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (BOCOG), the tournament promises to be an exciting event. Four women’s teams (China, Canada, Germany and Japan) and four men’s teams (China, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands) have been invited to play in this unique test before the Games in September 2008.

Maureen Orchard, Technical Delegate to the Paralympic Games for the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) said: “This tournament also provides us with an excellent opportunity to familiarize some of our senior technical officials who will be at both this event and the Paralympic Games with the venue and the personnel we will be working with during the Paralympics. We had a similar opportunity before the World Championships in Amsterdam and really felt it was very useful.”

The IWBF will also conduct the draw for the pools for the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games during this “Good Luck” Tournament. The pairings for the draw were made in accordance with the standings from the previous main official tournament of IWBF, the 2006 World Championships and the standings in each zone after the qualification tournaments for Beijing. The pairs for the draw will be released later.