Our King Power Quad Nations elite tournament hosted at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff was a great success. I am continually blown away by the Welsh hospitality and I’m yet to meet anyone who attended that didn’t have a great time. All the teams that were present (GB, Canada, France, and Germany) will be at the World Championship which starts 10 October so this was the last opportunity for teams to sharpen their swords ahead of the most important competition outside of the Paralympics. A thrilling GB v Canada final that went to double overtime saw the competition close with Canada coming out the victors. Both teams were pushed to the wire in both the final and semi-final and have shown they have the mettle to get over the line. From a performance point of view, the King Power Quad Nations has been the perfect preparation for October’s World Championship in Denmark and we can go into that tournament full of confidence.
The weekend had been a real showcase of wheelchair rugby, with exciting and tense matches showing newcomers to the sport what a thrilling spectacle it is. It’s been great to welcome so many local people – both as spectators and volunteers – to our sport and we can’t wait to be back in Cardiff next May for the European Championship. We felt very at home in that rugby-loving city! A big thank you to all the countries that made the trip over here for the tournament and our title sponsor King Power for the support to deliver the event.
Performance Pathway Manager Stuart McLindon and Pathway Head Coach Lee Parry put our future GB hopefuls on show with a match on the Saturday of the tournament. Additional opportunities to travel and play in professional venues support the development of our talent athletes. We also brought over 20 of our female players together for a training session and game on the main court – read more on the women and girls day here and hear from one of the players here. We are proud that our sport is mixed gender, however it is important that we can bring our female players together to train and play together as it’s often not an opportunity they have outside of this event.
All roads lead to the World Championship
Our GB team completed their final training camp last weekend ahead of the World Championship. The team have been transitioning over the last year with a new head of performance support and science in Barry Mason, improved resource due to the return of UK Sport funding, new up-and-coming players entering the system, and existing players taking on new roles as seasoned veterans exited the programme after Tokyo. What has been positive is the team has been on a steady upwards trajectory over the year. Elite sport isn’t an exact science, and on any given day a number of variables will impact the performance of the team. They key is to try and ‘control what you can control’ and the rest will be what it will be; and the team has done a great job at doing this over the year. The squad have also not been resting on their laurels after the Tokyo win and have been working hard to elevate their gameplay across multiple areas. The World Championship has served up somewhat of a ‘banana skin’ game introducing quarter finals into the playoff format. Historically, most championship events (including the Paralympics) have the top 2 from each group go through to the semi finals. This larger World Championship with 12 teams is putting the top 4 from each group through to the playoffs. This will certainly add to the drama of the competition. GB have reached a number of bronze medal games at previous World Championships but have never been able to finish on the podium. The team are eager to break that trend with the aim of ‘peaking’ at the perfect time. You can read more about the World Championship HERE!
Raising funds for our members
Our online auction is still live until 7 October. So far, we have raised over £1,700 which will go towards reducing members’ competition costs in 2023. I must say a big thank you to our friends at the RFU, WRU, NFL, and Goodwood for providing these fantastic items. Remember to share the link on your socials and with friends, family, and colleagues so we can raise as much money as possible. Thank you to everyone who has taken part so far and we look forward to doing more of these in the future.
Back Up Trust and GBWR collaborative piece with Kylie Grimes
In case you missed it, GBWR and Back Up Trust created a piece with our GB athlete Kylie Grimes. Kylie shared her story of how both Back Up Trust and wheelchair rugby have been an important part of the recovery from her spinal injury and created fantastic opportunities for her. Kylie is a fine example of the power of the human spirt and what you can do when you’re prepared to try things that may make you uncomfortable. See the article here. Our chair, Ed Warner and I had the opportunity of meeting with Abigail Lock the CEO of Back Up Trust at one of their fundraising events in the summer. Both of our organisations work with individuals with spinal injuries thus we will be looking at more opportunities to collaborate going forward.
Jason Brisbane
CEO
Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby
