The coming week sees the 7th Annual Paralympic World Cup take place in Manchester, UK, where athletes compete on the World’s stage in further preparation for 2012. The event will host over 300 athletes from across the globe and in 2010 saw 14,650 spectators descend upon Manchester. The event hosts several sports including Athletics, Swimming, and notably for Southampton Solent University, Wheelchair Basketball.
James Fisher (Technician Instructor and Associate Lecturer on the Health, Exercise and Sport Science portfolio) has been an Assistant Coach with the Great Britain Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team since their return from Beijing, 2008.
Recently the Women’s team have improved their ranking to 6th in the world but face some tough competition from Germany, Canada, and Japan. James commented "Every UK tournament is a great opportunity to play in front of a home crowd and further prepare for playing in London (2012). The team continues to make excellent progress and we have some rookies playing in the PWC this year to continue trying new things and looking at different combinations. This will be a great tournament; both Germany and Canada (ranked 2nd and 3rd, respectively) will provide the tough challenge needed to continue to improve".
The team have a busy schedule through 2011 including the Under 25 Women's World Championships in Canada (July) and the European Championships in Israel (September) as well as smaller tournaments. Watch this space for progress.
You can follow the Paralympic World Cup on Channel 4! Take a look the the advert below.
We were very lucky to have Murray Treseder, head coach to the GB men's wheelchair basketball come to talk to the third year Applied Sport Science and Sport Coaching students today on the Sport Science Support unit. He gave an overview of his coaching philosophy and how this was to impact on the preparations for London 2012 in the typical Australian way Murray delivers! Murray introduced his talk by giving us all an insight into his experience and background and how he had worked his way to head coach in a number of squads across the world. He then concluded with information on the team of professionals that support the GB athletes, the way in which they work together and how this manifests itself through the team performance. We look forward to seeing Murray again next year just prior to his engagements at 2012!
James has been an assistant coach with the squad since early 2009, and helped them to a 3rd place at the 2009 European Championships as well as a 6th place at the 2010 World Championships, improving 2 places in their world rankings since the Paralympics in Beijing 2008. 2011 sees the team travel to Canada for the first Women's Under 25 World Championships, and later to Israel for the 2011 European Championships.
2010 Paralympic World Cup, Manchester, UK.
James commented “This weekend we had 21 athletes, ranging from 15 up to 36 years preparing girls for competition both this year and next. British Wheelchair Basketball is pushing for the highest ranking ever achieved by the women’s team at the Europeans this year in Israel, as well as at London 2012. Of course, we are also very focused on the under-25 World Championships in Canada. Last year 6 of our 12-player squad at the World Championships were under 25, so we have high hopes for that competition”.
The next camp is in April 2011, watch this space for regular updates and tournament results.
