This weekend I was lucky enough to attend a fantastic weekend of sport back oop north in sunny Manchester.
The weather was perfect, the programme of sports was incredible, and as a newcomer to the Paralympic World Cup, I was blown away by the level of skill and physicality of some of the events.
A banner at the Paralympic World Cup:
My first match of the day on Friday was Women's
Wheelchair Basketball - GB versus China. These girls were fast and the match was a good introduction to the skill needed to manoeuvre the sports chairs around the court. The men were to follow later and that was a whole different ball game, making me glad that I wasn't a referee or official running around in the middle! Unfortunately our ladies lost out and were beaten by China who had a really strong and focused side. But the men beat Sweden in the afternoon to take them into the semi-finals on Saturday.
The men playing Paralympic Basketball:
The atmosphere was incredible - schools had come along to cheer on the teams and GB were certainly feeling the love from their home crowd - imagine this on a much larger scale in 2012 and you can’t help but feel excited!
Here's a little bit about my new favourite sport:
Paralympic Basketball is only open to wheelchair athletes. Athletes are classified according to their physical ability and are given a points rating between 1 and 4.5. One point is for the most severely disabled and 4.5 the least disabled. Each team fields five players but may not exceed a total of 14 points at any given time. Imagine my surprise to see a couple of the guys and girls stand up at the end of the match and walk away from the court - not everyone in the team uses a wheelchair on a day-to-day basis.
More exciting play from the men's Paralympic Basketball:
Wheelchair Basketball is seriously popular and it’s easy to see why when the GB guys played an outstanding match in the final against USA. It was a really close run, with both teams making some incredible plays and really giving us all a great show. Unfortunately we lost out to the USA who took the match 60 points to 58. Let’s hope we can get revenge in Beijing!
The
Swimming finals on Friday saw the incredible South African Natalie du Toit take the gold for her performance in the 100m freestyle. Despite having had a leg amputated, Natalie has qualified for the Beijing Olympic Games and will be competing in the able-bodied 10km open water event, which is making its debut in Beijing.
Sunday gave us a whole day of athletics and the chance to see one of our greatest Paralympic athletes in action. Fresh from a win at the London Marathon, David Weir took gold in both the 400m and 1500m track events - again, the home crowd were cheering him all the way and giving us a glimpse of what the home crowd will be like in 2012.
Now I am wishing the summer away (well almost!) because when we get to 6 September and the opening of the Paralympic Games in Beijing, I will be enjoying following team GB in a fantastic programme of Paralympic sport - who could ask for more?
