Paralympic Men's Basketball - Semifinals

Catherine and I went to last night's semifinal games for men's wheelchair basketball. The two part event saw Great Britain versus Australia and then Canada versus the United States. We arrived half-way through the first game with the Aussies holding a commanding lead over the Brits. The venue was the National Indoor Stadium and it was general seating so we had to find a pair of seats in the upper levels as all the good seats had been taken.

After the Aussies won their game, advancing to the finals, we decided to move from our higher perch and try our luck trying more court-side seating. We were crammed in the aisles with all the other people trying to get into the first few rows and things were looking kinda glum as we hoped that enough Aussie supporters would leave to allow us to fill the vacuum. All of a sudden, an Australian fan pointed to Catherine and me and told us to come down to their seat, noting that they were leaving but wanted to give their seats to Canadian fans. Good thing we were wearing our Canada gear! Turned out the seats were row two, middle of the court. Sweetness.

The Canada-US match itself was absolutely amazing. The US lead in all four regular quarters, but at the end Team Canada managed to pull it together to tie the game. Going into overtime, the momentum had clearly shifted with the remaining fans in the stadium (many had left since it was a late game) being mostly Canadian supporters. Chants of "Defence!" when Canada was defending against the Americans were loud, as were the "Go Canada Go!" or "Jianada, jiayou!". The people would stamp their feet at every American freethrow and a cheer would go up with each Canadian basket. Even with the momentum shift, the first OT ended with a tie, and so into double overtime we went! But Team Canada would not let their fans down and took command of the game and won it with a final score of 69-62. A great ending and looking forward to seeing Canada compete for gold.

Being able to watch wheelchair basketball live and up close was eyeopening. These atheletes (as with all the other Paralympic athletes) are incredible and are pushing the envelope of their sports. Their feats of athleticism are as equally impressive as those of their Olympic counterparts. I'm sure this realization of mine comes mainly because of me being herein Beijing during the Paralympics where there is continual coverage of the games, but it is too bad that not more people at home are taking note of these athletes and the great work they are doing. It is almost impossible to find anything about the Paralypics on the globeandmail website, and not too much on the cbc website either. Hope that will change as we head towards 2010.

G