Basketball Draw for Beijing Paralympics
For Immediate Release
Beijing, China
The Swissotel Beijing was the site of the draw for the Pools for wheelchair basketball. The atmosphere was great with lots of media, team representatives and BOCOG representatives in attendance. Sir Philip Craven, President of IPC gave a short welcome and mentioned how pleased he was to be present at the first drawing for the groups for the Paralympics and the Olympics.
Maureen Orchard, President of the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation oversaw the draw assisted by members of the Wheelchair Basketball Competition Management team and players from the Chinese men’s and women’s teams. She was also assisted by IWBF Executive
Council members Ron Coppenrath and Jan Berteling who drew the numbers to position the teams for final placing in the schedule
The pools for the IIIX Paralympic Games wheelchair basketball are:
WOMEN:
GROUP A |
POSITION |
GROUP B |
Great Britain |
1 |
China |
USA |
2 |
Canada |
Australia |
3 |
Japan |
Brazil |
4 |
Mexico |
Germany |
5 |
The Netherlands |
MEN
GROUP A |
POSITION |
GROUP B |
Germany |
1 |
Israel |
South Africa |
2 |
Brazil |
Japan |
3 |
China |
Canada |
4 |
USA |
Sweden |
5 |
Great Britain |
Iran |
6 |
Australia |
Orchard announced that the final game schedule would now be completed and released in the next weeks. She thanked everyone for coming and making the draw a success.
Orchard reminded everyone that there was still some exciting wheelchair basketball games coming up and invited them to come out to the NIS and watch.
The final standings after the preliminary round in women saw Germany in first, Japan second, Canada third and China fourth. In men’s play Australia came out on top of the Group followed by Canada, The Netherlands and China.
The semi-finals will take place on Thursday January 24 with Germany playing China women in the first game of the day and Australia playing China in men’s play right after. The afternoon draw will see Japan against Canada in women and Canada against the Netherlands in Men.
For full results and pictures please visit the IWBF web site at www.iwbf.org
For further information please contact the IWBF Secretariat at IWBFSecretariat@aol.com
Wheelchair Sports Australia Ltd
PO Box 4083 Homebush South NSW 2140
http://www.sports.org.au