GREAT Britain were crowned champions of the BT Paralympic World Cup Team Trophy 2012 after a dramatic final day of wheelchair basketball and football 7-a-side at Manchester Regional Arena.
GB’s cerebral palsy team and the men’s wheelchair basketball side finished the competition with silver medals, while the women’s side were unlucky to lose in their third-place play-off match with USA, who instead take bronze.
Earlier in the week, Great Britain beat the Czech Republic in an enthralling boccia series, with brothers Stephen and Peter McGuire representing the hosts, while Oscar Pistorius, Jeremy Campbell and Graeme Ballard all starred in the athletics on the opening day of competition, with the latter two setting world records in the discus and the T36 100m respectively.
The competition closed with women’s wheelchair basketball action and Watford athlete Helen Freeman, who studies in the US at the University of Illinois, was understandably pleased with her team’s performance, despite the result.
Freeman, who was the game’s leading-scorer with 20 points, said: “It was disappointing to lose, but we played really well and it was a challenging game. What it showed was that there is not a lot separating us from the very top teams in the world and with a bit of a work we can hopefully raise our game in London and put ourselves in contention for a medal.
“We have got a lot of training camps ahead of us, we are off to the USA in a couple of weeks for a camp and also to play the USA again. This is all great experience for us, the more we play the tough teams the better we get and it puts us in a better place for London.
“The home crowd this week has been amazing, better than any other year and it just gave us a taste of what London will be like with the home advantage, it will give us a huge boost and motivate us to play the best basketball we can play.”
The women’s wheelchair basketball competition was won by Germany, who beat Australia 47-40 in the final.
Much of this success has to be attributed to the incredible performance of Marina Mohen, who scored a staggering 37 or her side’s 47 points.
Mohen said: “It is great to win, but I enjoy the game more when it’s more a team game, it was more of an individual’s game. The defence of the Australians was tough and it always is.
“I scored 37 of the 47 but it is much more fun when the whole team contributes. The rest of the tournament was more even scoring. It was great tournament.”
Over the five days of competition more than 200 athletes from 30 countries competed in front of more than 11,000 spectators
