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By Nino Susanto & Wayne Ang
3 & 4 May 2008 – Wheelchair Basketball Association (Singapore) in collaboration with International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) Asia Oceania staged the Wheelchair Basketball Technical Clinics. Spanning across two days, the seminar included two components that were carried out concurrently, refereeing and classification. The clinics took place at the United World College of South East Asia Dover Campus.
The refereeing segment was conducted by Mr Greg Love, Secretary General of IWBF Asia Oceania. The turnout for this clinic turned out to be particicularly encouraging as more than 50 Singapore national basketball referees participated in the course.
This segment of the clinic turned out to be expectedly enriching and entertaining. Mr Love went beyond simply providing technical information such as game rules, to the participants He also showed us live examples on how the violation or a foul is committed.
The course included practical sessions for the participants as well, to play and have a feel on what the game is actually about. Basketball is a highly competitive sport that requires both agility and speed from each player to play the game well. Similarly for Wheelchair Basketball, the players adopt the movements and the speed of the wheelchair. However, for wheelchair basketball every movement made by each player is very tactical. In terms of using the wheelchair to block the opponent’s direction of movement, shooting position and to stop the wheelchair from moving completely. The strategies used are all similar to basketball.
However, there are only very few differences between wheelchair basketball and basketball, pertaining mainly to violation. Example: “the violation of double bouncing the ball in basketball”, for wheelchair basketball this violation is omitted for practical reasons as well as to keep the game free flowing.
The classification clinic was helmed by Ms Tan Jin, an IWBF International Classifier. The course saw five participants, including physiotherapist, sport engineer and coaches, who are keen to know about wheelchair basketball classification. Through this clinic, participants would obtain a healthy headstart en route to becoming a full fledged national classifier. The course syllabus included general information about the IWBF Classification System as well as practical sessions such as training and real-time match observations.
During the certificate presentation ceremony, Mr. Lim Puay Tiak, President WBA Singapore hoped that the clinics would nurture potential national referees and classifiers as an integral effort to grow wheelchair basketball in Singapore.