Luciano Andrade summoned to the Argentine Basketball Team in a wheelchair: “When we found out, we were shocked”

Almost a year ago in the gym of the Provincial Center for High Performance Sports (CEPARD) from Santa Cruz you can’t hear the ball sting. In recent months, sports calendars began to be reestablished, including wheelchair basketball, which has already called for the first concentration in 2021. Among those mentioned is Luciano Andrade (18 of CRiGal from Rio gallegos.

“It is very exciting in this year full of bad news. We can finally give good news, a very nice one regarding adapted basketball,” he says. Juan Soto, president of the Rio Gallegos de Crippled Club (CRiGal) in dialogue with The Austral Opinion.

“Luciano is a player made at the club, he has worked hard, he has many minutes in the Super League, we are very happy and we know that it is the number placed to represent the Argentine national team in the event that will be held in Colombia. It is very good news for us, for the sports environment and for the entire CRiGal family that is going through a difficult time, like everyone else, locked in by this pandemic, “he reflected.

2015, the year of CRiGal champion

“Luciano Andrade arrived at CRiGal at the end of 2015, the year in which CRiGal was champion of the National League, where all the press surrendered a bit at the feet of the club, not only here but in the world of wheelchair basketball. It’s not common for a small-town team to win a national title, “recalls the coach. Luciano Dalla Fontana.

Luciano was 15 years old when he approached CRiGal, the same club that he joined and promoted Graciela Di Simone, Paralympic medalist of Heidelberg 1972, and to which it also belonged Vanesa Salcedo, current member of The Wolves, the Women’s Selection with which she participated in World, Paranapanamericans Y Rio Paralympics 2016. The santacruceño club also counts among its players: Guillermo Ramirez, who due to his dual nationality, has been a member of the Chilean team.

It was a primary school teacher who told the then 15-year-old teenager that CRiGal existed. One of his six brothers, he is the one in the middle, accompanied him to CEPARD and Dalla Fontana tested him on the field.

“At the beginning it was difficult since I started out as a very shy boy, with few words,” Luciano tells SPEAK. “Little by little, as time went by, the guys at CRiGal forged my character, helping me to improve in every way,” he says.

The coach recalls that Luciano “started strongly in 2016. That year we encouraged ourselves to participate in the Avoid GamesIt was a very important moment, it was the event where he was able to participate continuously, he played many games. Santa Cruz was champion of those Evita Games “.

For Luciano the first trip was not easy. “It was a bit uncomfortable, it was the first time I had visited another province but as time went by I got used to all this,” he points out and adds that “it took my mother a lot to let go of me to be able to make my trips.”

First

The first minutes in the National League They arrived in 2017. Dalla Fontana admits that in 2016 it was not yet time for the young player to enter the field: “He still needed to strengthen himself, learn the fundamentals. In 2017 we were encouraged to register him, he had playing opportunities, he played many games , especially those in which CRiGal had an advantage over other rivals. He had many minutes on the court and also participated in the Evita Games, we started second, we lost the final by one point against San Juan “.

Luciano has practiced other sports: table tennis, badminton and athletics, in which he was champion in the Evita Games 2019. “I liked to play but I didn’t have the time with basketball and school,” he says, choosing to focus on the sport of orange.

“2018 was very similar to 2017 but with it increased, with greater power, speed and understanding of the game. In 2018 he participated in the Avoid Games and he really stood out because he was a leader on the court, it was his third Game Evita, Santa Cruz was champion. He was very important in the scaffolding of that tournament “, Dalla Fontana reviews.

“In 2019, due to an economic issue, CRiGal could not strengthen itself as it wanted and decided, being the only team in the whole country, to start a U18 in the Super League, where the best teams in the country play, it was a very strong, very dynamic. He grew a lot, a situation that made the National Team coach Juan Dominguez, see it. Although he did not have a great participation in offense and with the ball in hand, he did the curtain work, he was very effective, he learned to do it and it is not an easy job, “he says.

Without detracting from the achievements in the Evita Games, the coach maintains that the “most important thing that happened to him and not only to Luciano but to Micaela Rosales, Elijah Velasquez, was the creation of the Patagonian League because the guys really felt very confident, they played with a lot of confidence. “

In this sense, he explains that “CRiGal decided, and I think it was a good decision, not to put the best team but to give the boys a chance. Not only did they win the Patagonian League but they grew a lot in confidence. Everything is very important but the League Patagónica above all else was where Luciano exploded and showed all his talent “.

2020 without basketball

The Covid-19 pandemic prevented the development of a sports calendar. Luciano spent the first year with his family, continuing his secondary studies and dedicating himself to freestyle.

“I still continue to write songs and freestyle, talking about what I feel. When I need to express myself with words but I don’t have anyone with whom, I express it with writing and on various issues I talk about God, what I have achieved and the change in me since I did it. I accepted in 2015 onwards, “he is 18 years old today.

For him the summons was unexpected. “I did not imagine something like this, it is a pride that they have summoned me” and continues saying that “when we found out about all this with my family, we were shocked and excited by everything that happened”.

“I thank God, I am where I am thanks to him and my teacher Luciano Dalla Fontana for having trusted me and for giving me this great opportunity to be able to travel for what I love.”

From February 8 to 11, the Rio Galician must concentrate on the facilities of the National Center for High Performance Sports (CENARD). Regarding his expectations, he points out that he will seek to “continue learning from the greatest.”

“We are happy about this situation, it is fair and without a doubt in his category he is one of the best Under 21s in the country if he is not the best,” says Dalla Fontana about the first, and surely not the last, great news for him adapted basketball from Santa Cruz in this 2021