Basketball 3×3Rafael Bogaerts is back in the country after he unexpectedly caused a furore at the Olympic Games with the 3×3 team. Over the next few days, he can reflect and put everything in order. However, that cannot last long, because the European championship is on the calendar at the end of September. Expectations will be just as high there.
This week Rafael Bogaerts can enjoy a welcome rest. “These have indeed been hectic days. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, no one can take this experience away from me. I can let everything sink in now. After the lost semi-final against Latvia I had a really difficult moment. I slept badly then, because I realized that we had missed a unique opportunity to take a medal. Gradually we realized that we should be proud of our achievement. You can also be proud, but the European Championship is just around the corner. We had already beaten Latvia in the first phase, but in that semi-final they overpowered us in stature. We hadn’t taken into account the scenario from the semi-finals on.”
state case
The 3x3s went to Tokyo as a ‘bunch of adventurers’. In just a few days they conquered all Belgian sports hearts. Suddenly everyone sympathized with the Belgian foursome. Was their performance the story of a sports federation’s failure? Rafael Bogaerts waves the journalistic reservations away. “It is true that the story of the ‘amateurs’ caught on. We also could not have imagined that our performances would stir so much on the home front. Little by little we realized in Tokyo that there was a lot of attention for 3×3 and that made us happy. It was only when we landed in Zaventem that we really realized how much compassion the people had here. I never dared to think that. We can only be happy with the attention that our sport now enjoys all over the country. Relatives, befriended athletes, colleagues at work. Everyone congratulated me. My immediate boss at shipping company MSC sent me a supportive message. That was nice.”
The future
Standing still is going backwards. Rafael Bogaerts realizes that people should not be left alone. “We received a three-month contract with Sport Vlaanderen. This means that we can keep working with 3×3 until the end of September. That date was not chosen by chance. After all, we can still finish the European championship in Paris at the end of September. In the coming days, we will sit down to see whether the contracts can be extended until 2022. After all, the World Cup in Antwerp is scheduled for next summer. We may even be able to build further towards the 2024 Games. That’s not clear yet. In any case, the European Championship will again be a tough and treacherous task. We are no longer the underdog, we will no longer be underestimated. At the European Championship we will be presented with almost the same opponents. Olympic champion Latvia will not be there. They had sent a B team for the European Championship qualification. Lithuania and Austria will again be present and they are no softies. We now know what we are capable of, but we also know that the opponents are of a high level.”
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