Steve-Goldberg-Column
28/02/2014
Steve Goldberg's Wheel World
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Quick on the Draw: The IWBF Women's World Championship

CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - Let the games begin. The mind games anyway. The draw for the 2014 IWBF Women's World Championship was held last week and now coaches around the world are contemplating - that may be too soft a word - their path to the podium.

Here's what they're thinking about. In Group A: Australia, France, Mexico, The Netherlands, Peru, and the United States. Group B: Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan.

If you know your women's wheelchair basketball on a global level, and if you're reading this column, I think you must have looked at Group A and said to yourself, "Wow, three of the four semi-finalists in London. This must be the Group of Death."

But when I posited that thought to Holger Glinicki, coach of the current Paralympic champions Germany, he dismissed it offhand, "No, all the three teams (will be) going to the quarter-finals."

He's quite right. In a World Cup football group with three top teams, one is destined not to proceed. Not so here where the top four on each side will progress to the knockout phase.

Thanks coach. Looking deeper, losses in group play are fleeting whereas Germany are looking at a potential quarterfinal match-up with The Netherlands, Australia or the USA. If form holds, it could be France. If form holds, that is.

Glinicki also isn't looking past his team's round robin play.

"We have in our pool a very balanced group without a weak team," he said.

Hosts Canada are definitely capable with players the quality of Janet McLachlan. Great Britain's women are a program on the rise. China showed they run with the big dogs in London where they finished fifth. Japan didn't qualify for the Paralympics but have a big time player in Mayumi Tsuchida. Brazil, which did make it, revolves around the play of Lia Maria Soares Martin.

Great Britain head coach in waiting Miles Thompson agreed with his German counterpart: "Our group is balanced and deep, while the 'A' group is top heavy, and ripe for heavy upsets. The goal is to be a one, or two seed, so your crossover allows for success.

"The 'B' grouping has a lot of intrigue. I anticipate close games throughout, and a five-day run of pool play that will test the team's resolve and competitive spirit."

The World Championships will be Thompson's first big event at the helm of the GB women. The former USA assistant and head coach at the University of Alabama will start full time at the end of Alabama's season.

His objective is to get the Brits to the podium, something they have yet to do in Paralympic or World play and he's straightforward on what he wants.

"I would not have taken this job if I didn't think we could get to podiums. I believe in the talent level of this team," Thompson said.

He isn't the only new coach on the block. Stephanie Wheeler, head coach at the University of Illinois and a two-time gold medalist as a player with the USA, has taken over the American side.

The North Carolina native - see how I worked that in there - relishes the immediate challenge: "I think it’s exciting to be in the same pool as the Dutch and Australians. Right away we get to play two of the best teams in the world. We've always had the mindset that we want the team to be challenged as early in a competition as we can, so that way, we can continually evaluate and improve during the tournament."

While Germany are the Paralympic champs, she's not looking past the fact that Holland won the Euro championship last summer.

"I think that there are a few teams that stand out as the best in the world. Of course the Germans as defending Paralympic champions, but I think after seeing their performance at the 2013 European Championships, the Dutch have put themselves in a position to be incredibly successful in Toronto. I think the Australians are another team that is poised to be successful."

Tom Kyle, a long-time assistant with the Aussie men, moves to the head seat for the Gliders who finished second to Germany after upsetting the USA in London. The Gliders have three World Championship medals, all bronze, with the last coming in 2002.

He brings consensus to what the other coaches have said: "I'm very happy with the draw; it has a good mix of experienced teams and a couple of new teams. Both sides of the draw are strong with group B with slightly more depth."

Kyle didn't buy my Group of Death analogy either, saying, "No I'm not worried about that the fact that three semi-finalists are our side of the draw. To be world champions you have to go into with the intension of beating every other team in the competition. If you cannot do that then you are not worthy to be world champion."

Any winner not from North America would make history. There have only been six world championship tilts so far on the women's side, which began in 1990, as compared with the men who have fought for 11 trophies to date. Of those six, only two teams have won, the USA twice bookending four consecutive gold medals for Canada who will be hosting this year from June 20-28.

So here comes a tournament where almost half of the dozen teams competing could win it all. It doesn't get much better than that. See you in Toronto.

Steve Goldberg

FIBA

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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Steve Goldberg

Steve Goldberg

Eight years after first getting a glimpse of wheelchair basketball at the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul when covering the Olympics for UPI, Steve Goldberg got the chance to really understand the game as Chief Press Officer for the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta. He's been a follower of the sport ever since. Over the years, the North Carolina-born and bred Tar Heel fan - but University of Georgia grad - has written on business, the economy, sports, and people for media including Time, USA Today, New York magazine, Reuters, Universal Sports, TNT, ESPN, New York Daily News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Olympian. Steve Goldberg's Wheel World will look at the past, present and future of wheelchair basketball.