Wheelchair Basketball preview

In the women’s competition, the battle will be between USA and Canada with a strong fight from Germany.

Dates: 30 August – 8 September

Venue: Basketball Arena and North Greenwich Arena

Number of Teams: 12 men’s, 10 women’s

Medal Events: 2

Ones to Watch: Australia men, Canada men, Canada women, USA women

Of all Paralympic sports, the competition on the wheelchair basketball court has arguably increased the most since the last Games in Beijing.

On the men’s side, defending Paralympic and world champions Australia have gotten even better, and they will be challenged by some of the best teams Canada, Great Britain and USA have fielded in decades.

Brad Ness, Justin Everson and Grant Mizens will lead an Australian team that has become accustomed to sitting atop the podium, but if they want to three-peat at the Paralympics, they will have to fend off Canada’s Patrick Anderson, arguably the best to have ever played the game.

“It’s definitely been the best preparation we’ve had leading up to a major tournament, whether that be a world championships or a Paralympic Games that I’ve been involved in,” Mizens said. “This is my third Paralympics, so I can really only speak for Athens or Beijing, but the preparation in just terms of organization, resources, our skills and conditioning has been very well-planned from far out.”

Anderson’s team, meanwhile, lost to Australia in the finals in Beijing, and with a cast behind him that includes David Eng, Joey Johnson and Bo Hedges, Canada would like to finish just as it did at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 – with gold.

“Patrick Anderson is to our sport what I suppose throughout his heyday Tiger Woods was to golf,” USA’s captain Paul Schulte said. “He has an all-around game. He can go inside, outside, he has a big body. He’s one of those guys that you’d compare to in the NBA that would just be really tall, but still with tremendous ball-handling, scoring and playmaking capabilities. If you wanted to build a wheelchair basketball player out of nothing, you’d build Pat Anderson.”

But it is definitely not a two-horse race, as Great Britain’s veteran-heavy squad includes Jon Pollock, Simon Munn and Abdi Jama, and with the home crowd behind them, there is no doubt they can make it to the podium on 8 September.

USA’s men have won wheelchair basketball gold a record five times and after a dominant top finish at this year’s BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in May, Schulte, Jason Nelms, Matt Scott and Steve Serio showcase enough depth to put forth an American team that could medal for the first time since Sydney 2000.

Spain, Poland and Turkey may also have the tools to pull an upset, we will just have to wait and see.

In the women’s competition, the battle will be between USA and Canada with a strong fight from Germany.

Both USA and Canada’s women’s teams have won gold three times, and USA is the defending Paralympic and world champions. Becca Murray and Sara Castle should anchor the Americans, but head coach Dave Kiley insists they need to be more aggressive on court with the increased level of competition.

“I think we have a pretty big target on our back,” Castle said. “But I think it’s a good thing. I think it motivates us to try to be better and it’s caused an evolution of the women’s wheelchair basketball game to be faster and to go outside the box a little bit.”

Canada, meanwhile, is sick of second and third-place finishes on the world stage, and so 23-year-old Cindy Ouellet is out to change that, insisting the Canadians will play more as a team this time around in their quest for gold.

Though, if things go as they have in early 2012, Germany could find itself atop the podium with and sharp-shooting Marina Mohen and consistent ball-handler Edina Mueller. The Germans won both the Four Nations Tournament and the BT Paralympic World Cup this year and are hungry to top their silver-medal performance from Beijing.

Australia could also enter the women’s medal field after defeating Germany at the World Challenge in Sydney last month, as could a feisty Brazilian squad and a tough Dutch team.

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Caption

USA has won gold or silver at the last two Paralympic Games and World Championships.