BASKETBALL TO NET NEXT GENERATION
After a tough year wheelchair basketball is looking to bounce back and it has a whole new audience in its sights
BRITISH Wheelchair Basketball is rebuilding itself in a bid to beat the effects of the pandemic as it looks to a brighter future. The organisation, whose men’s team are world and European champions and whose women’s team are world and European medallists, has seen play suspended for most of the past 12 months as the world battles coronavirus.
But its proactive chief executive Lisa Pearce has been busy preparing for a return to action in 2021 and recently unveiled a new Inspire a Generation campaign in the hope new players will be attracted to the sport in the UK when doors open again.
It has been a tough time for most sports but particularly so for disabled people who want to remain active but are aware of the dangers of the virus, missing out on the sporting – and social – outlet they are used to.
Pearce told Metro: ‘With this new initiative, people will have the opportunity to come to a truly inclusive environment and I truly mean that. If you could bottle the community of wheelchair basketball and circulate that to everybody, we’d have a pretty impressive nation and equality, fairness and opportunity would be there for everyone.
‘We’re in full suspension at the moment but what we’ve been doing is supporting people in the virtual environment with things like the BWB Virtual Club that’s running every week, seminars, sessions to keep everybody socially connected.’
Britain’s Sophie Carrigill, a 2016 Paralympian, admits it has been a hard year for athletes with disabilities. The 27-year-old, who was paralysed from the waist down in a car accident in the US 11 years ago, said: ‘I see the inequality every day, disabled people just don’t have the access their able-bodied counterparts do to sport. It’s crucial that changes – it’s about time.
‘I’m so happy we’re out there encouraging people. It’s great we have this programme in place and also that able-bodied people can play the sport too, it’s fully inclusive. I want more players coming through, pushing me for my place, but that doesn’t come from nowhere – they have to come through the grassroots and come from somewhere.’
While sport is just part of the solution to a return to activity for disabled people in the long term, Pearce says she has been shocked by the numbers around disability and Covid19. ‘What we’ve seen is the disproportionate effect of Covid on disabled people – the figures are absolutely devastating,’ she added. ‘ Almost 60 per cent of people who had died by last July were disabled.
‘We have to be better and we all know how important our physical and mental health is. We need to get people physically and socially connected. Covid has shown we need to find ways to engage young people.’ With the rearranged Paral
ympic Games later this summer and wheelchair basketball included on the programme for next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, there is plenty for Carrigill and her team-mates to look forward to once they can get playing again.
However, many challenges lie ahead and she just wants future stars to be able to find their nearest club through the Inspire a Generation programme and enjoy the fun of the sport first.
‘I was lucky I found a club just down the road from me and I don’t know what I’d have done if that hadn’t been there,’ she said.
‘We need that to get more women, more girls, playing and to grow our fanbase. I want more people coming through the grassroots to play internationally and compete for my position.’
■ British Wheelchair Basketball has launched its Inspire a Generation programme, a hugely exciting development for the sport which will give thousands of people across England the opportunity to try wheelchair basketball for the first time. To find out more, or to become a Community Activator, visit inspireageneration.com