4 days ago
Wheelchair basketball training camp no airball
Bethany Johnson was all smiles Tuesday at the Sport for Life Centre — even though she'll be forced to wear a shoulder sling while she recovers.
Johnson, a 23-year-old from Winnipeg, and the Canadian senior women's national wheelchair team are in town for a seven-day training camp that wraps up Wednesday. Five members of the Canadian men's NextGen under-23 squad also made the trip, leading to some hard-fought scrimmages between the two sides.
After suffering an injury on Monday, Johnson is capping off camp in her hometown by watching from the sideline.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS
Canadian women's wheelchair basketball head coach Michele Sung plans to continue to hold the week-long training camp annually in Winnipeg.
'It was nothing too dramatic. I was going up for a late shot at the end of the clock and this really big dude named Jeffer Ward, who has a lot of muscles, hit it really hard and something went clunk. We'll recover,' said Johnson with a laugh.
'We've got some guys who are really committed to the sport who want to be out here and get some reps with us. They're able to push us, a lot of them are bigger, faster, some of them are a little taller, so, they're able to give us some really good competition at our camps.'
It's the second year in a row Winnipeg has hosted a week-long training session. The plan is for it to be the norm moving forward as University of Manitoba Bisons women's basketball head coach Michele Sung took over the women's wheelchair program last year ahead of the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
'I think it's nice to really see how Sport Manitoba can support a national team here,' said Johnson, who's heading into her final year playing at the University of Illinois.
'The gym is a great facility, especially with having a weight room upstairs, and a clinic on site, I think it's a really good system.'
Despite being brought in towards the end of the last quadrennial, Sung managed to lead the red and white to a fourth-place finish in Paris which was the best result the Canadian women have had in 20 years since a third-place showing at 2004 Athens.
'Michele came to the program really last minute. She's been really good to finally have some more stability in the team and she's very levelheaded and will listen,' said 24-year-old Puisand Lai, who hails from Toronto and has represented the country at the last two Paralympics.
'She also brings a new perspective to the team. I think she's been really great. She comes from a standup background, so it's been kind of nice to almost learn from a totally new perspective and I think it goes both ways as well.'
Canada lost a 72-61 heartbreaker to Netherlands in the semifinal before falling 65-43 to China for bronze.
'Based on all of the challenges, and what I had been told, I just really wanted to be able to compete well against teams. And then as soon as we played fairly decent in that first game (a 70-65 loss to China), even though we didn't fully empty the tank, I was like 'OK, we're going for gold,'' said Sung, who grew up in Milgrove, Ont., but came to Winnipeg in 2006 to play five seasons for the Bisons. She's entering her 12th season coaching at the U of M.
'It was like an instant shift after Game 1. So, then it was tough to then play our worst basketball in the bronze medal game. I mean, that's sports, that's the way it goes… It's tough not to think about it, but we have a lot of work to do to consistently get podium finishes.'
The next chance at a podium will be in Bogotá, Colombia, in August for the Americas Cup. After that, the focus will shift to the IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships (Sept. 9-19, 2026) and then the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS
Paralympian Puisand Lai (right) pursues a loose ball at the wheelchair basketball training camp on Tuesday at the Sport for Life Centre.
'Wheelchair Basketball Canada has started really focusing on bringing younger players up into the system, so that's been a really positive development,' said Johnson.
'I think once we can really gel between the seniors that have been around for ages, the brand new girls, and the kind of 'tweeners like I am, I think we're gonna have a really strong program pretty soon under Michele.'
Two of the up-and-comers representing the NextGen men are Winnipeggers Bernard Rosello and Matthew Wilton.
Rosello and Wilton recently wore the maple leaf in June at the Men's Under-23 World Championship in Brazil where they placed eighth.
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'It was so fun. I love basketball, and the competition out there is incredible,' said Rosello, who was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency — a condition affecting the development of his hip and leg.
'I got to see what other countries are like and how strong their guys are, and it just makes me watch to push harder back at home. It lit a little bit of a fire under my ass.'
Rosello, 20, has been playing wheelchair hoops since he was 12. The goal is to score an NCAA scholarship down south and to make the Canadian senior men's team ahead of LA 2028.
'It's going to be a lot of hard work, but I'm willing to go through it,' said Rosello. 'But if I'm not chosen, 2032 is always there. I'm young, and I know there's a lot of things I can work on. It's not going to be easy, and I'm ready for that.'
Taylor AllenReporter
Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.
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