Wheelchair Basketball World Championships: Day 1 Results
The Great Britain men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams had mixed fortunes on the opening day of the World Championships in Birmingham.
The men, who were Paralympic bronze medallists in Beijing two years ago, easily defeated South Korea 87-43.
Jon Pollock and Ian Sagar finished as the top scorers for Murray Treseder’s side with 16 and 14 points apiece.
But the GB women’s team, which includes six players under the age of 21, were edged out 39-38 by the Netherlands.
The two sides were evenly matched throughout the game with GB leading by five points at half time (22-17) with Helen Freeman and Clare Strange in impressive form.
In the second half, the Dutch came back into it and by the end of the third quarter the scores were tied at 32-32.
Freeman edged GB 38-37 in front with three minutes to go but a basket from Roos Oosterbaan gave the Dutch the lead again and despite both teams going close to scoring, it was the visitors who emerged victorious.
The women will look to bounce back on Thursday against a strong Canada team who won gold at the recent BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester.
The British men made an impressive start to the tournament against a relatively unknown Korea side.
They led 24-10 at the end of the first quarter and were 47-20 up at the break allowing coach Treseder to make full use of his bench ahead of the next game against Japan on Thursday evening.
Same Difference 