Gasabo women wheelchair basketball and Kicukiro men wheelchair basketball teams emerged winners of the 2022/2023 wheelchair basketball championship held at Stecol Corporation in Gasabo district on 14, May,2023.
To emerge winners, the women’s team took part in two games and Gasabo women’s WBB(Wheelchair basketball) team beat Kicukiro women’s WBB team 3-2points.
The men’s teams played three games where Kicukiro men WBB beat Gasabo men WBB 34-25 points.
The wheelchair basketball championship was started in 2018 with only two teams for women and men but now the teams are 9 from 5 districts a number the wheelchair basketball president- Dinah Iriza says is still less.
“The teams are still very few, in Rwanda we have 30 districts hence the number of teams should match that of the districts”, she states.
Dinah cited two major reasons for the low turn up of teams: the wheel chairs used while playing the game are very expensive with one costing about 600 Rwandan francs.
In addition, some of the people living with disability are shy hence don’t think that they are capable of taking part in the sport a thing she said they’re working hard to change, she said.
While congratulating the winners, the president of Rwanda Paralympics (NPC Rwanda) MUREMA Jean Batiste encouraged the teams to ‘not give up’ because good things are coming their way.
He went ahead to mention some of the challenges they face during the game where they have cases of players playing both; wheelchair basketball and sitting volleyball yet it is prohibited.
Murema also mentioned that the three best performers at the championship are to take part in the upcoming Genocide memorial tournament.
