Ainars Bagatskis: the situation in Latvian basketball is tragic – Sports – Klik

TVNET: In the second half of August, three teams with war refugees from Ukraine will participate in the Alfred Krauklis memorial tournament. You and your wife Ilze have a lot of credit for helping young people get to Latvia. She has returned to everyday life at her basic job (sworn lawyer – aut.), but does the assistance to Ukrainians continue?

She does not stop, continues to do everything to help Ukrainians. Camps are held for almost all youth national teams of Ukraine. She gets involved in the most direct way. I did tentatively everything I could. Now that I have started training for the Ukrainian national team, my wife is fully involved – with her essence, with her knowledge. She helps a lot. Considering how the youth national teams are playing now, what is the inside of Latvian basketball, I am in favor of having as many Ukrainians here as possible. For them to train with our boys and girls. Let there be competition. Only in a competitive environment is it possible to progress and become better. What are our results in youth basketball in the last three, four years? I will probably say how it is – tragic. Maybe the Ukrainians will help. This does not mean that the proportion of Ukrainians or other nationalities will become huge. It’s just that in a competitive environment, their talents will be the driving force for us to move forward.

TVNET: What’s missing right now? Until recently, we had medals at the European Championships. For the generation of the 2000s, silver in the U-18 age group with Artūras Žagar in the lead. 1998 with the leaders Rodion Kuruc and Krister Zorik won the U-16 silver. In 1995, Kristaps Porzingis, Andrzej Pasečnik, Roland Šmit and others were unlucky – 4th place U-18.