the French men’s wheelchair basketball team obtains its ticket for the Paris Games, a first in twenty years – Libération

By beating Morocco (87-60) this Monday April 15 during the Paralympic qualifying tournament, the Blues won the right to participate in the Games this summer. This has not happened since Athens in 2004.

This team has been waiting for two decades. This Monday, April 15, the French men’s wheelchair basketball team successfully obtained its ticket to participate in this summer’s Games, after a victory against Morocco (87-60), during the Paralympic qualifying tournament (TQP), the aptly named “Last Chance for Paris”. The last participation of the Blues dates back to the Athens Games in 2004. “This TQP is mini-Paralympic Games before their time”, had teased a few days before the competition Stéphane Binot, the sports director of French armchair basketball, a pioneering discipline of Paralympism, present continuously on the program since the first Games organized for people with disabilities in Rome, in 1960.

“Wheelchair basketball is a spectacular and fun sport, with players who handle their wheelchairs like real Formula 1 drivers,” Stéphane Binot also praised before the competition. Speed, skill, dexterity: the qualities required of wheelchair basketball players, who have around a thousand players in France, are the same required for standing players. The rules of play are similar: five against five, four times ten minutes, with the same points system, the same length of court and the same height of the basket. “The big difference lies in the impact of contacts in armchair basketball, shocks are part of the game,” explained Cojo’s basketball and armchair basketball manager, Jérôme Rosenstiehl, during a press briefing at the beginning of the month. To maintain fairness between the teams, a classification system has been established: depending on their handicap, each athlete is assigned a number of points (from 1 to 4.5) and the higher the degree of handicap, the higher the number of points is low. The total number of points for each team on the field must never exceed 14.

Four games, four wins

Despite the Games being organized in Paris, the international Paralympic authorities had refused, as is usually the case, to automatically reserve a ticket for the French wheelchair basketball teams – the women hope to win the precious ticket at the end of the a TQP organized from Wednesday April 17 to Saturday April 20 in Osaka, Japan – and reduced from twelve to eight the number of nations who will have the chance to play on the floor of the Accor Arena in Bercy from August 29 to 8 september. This decision was “designed by the authorities to organize the most competitive event possible” and “bring together the top of the basket (sic) of world armchair basketball” this summer, explained Jérôme Rosenstiehl.

Libélympic logbook

Organized in Antibes in the AzurArena since Friday, the men’s Paralympic qualifying tournament brought together eight teams, including the top names on the world circuit, for only four “golden tickets”, synonymous with participation in the Paris Games. And the Blues flew through the competition: four matches – one per day – and four victories. First in groups against Iran (63-62), Canada (61-55) and the Netherlands (48-43), which allowed them to finish first, and to face and then beat Morocco this Monday, April 15, who arrived last in his group and well within their reach. The teams qualified for this summer are therefore the United States (world champion and big favorite), Great Britain (world vice-champion and European champion), Australia, Spain (vice-champion of Europe), Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and France.

“Defensive rigor”

After a failure in the quarter-finals at the world championships in June 2023 and a defeat against Iran, the French men’s team reorganized this year by changing coach, Franck Bornerand then taking the reins of the team. team. “A painful but inevitable transition. He based his game on more defensive rigor, with more ball movements,” explained Stéphane Binot.

Sofyane Mehiaoui, playmaker of the team, confirms this major defensive work and also praises the arrival of Steven Caine, former British wheelchair basketball player, Paralympic vice-champion in Atlanta in 1996, as Bornerand’s assistant: “ He understands certain movements that standing players do not master.

The organizers hope that this qualification of the Blues will create a boost in terms of ticketing, which is still in its infancy, where tickets are sold from 15 euros. The entire competition will take place at the Accor Arena in Bercy, which can accommodate up to 15,000 people: “A splendid hall, the most beautiful in France, which has notably hosted NBA matches,” marveled at the start April Jérôme Rosenstiehl.