Australia’s male wheelchair basketballers are odds-on favourites to claim gold at the London Paralympics, but they are not taking their world champion status for granted.
With one Paralympic gold medal already in his possession and another one in his sights, Tige Simmons says it’s a great time to be an Australian wheelchair basketballer.
“I think this is going to be the best year of my life,” he said in Canberra, where the Rollers are wrapping up their first training camp of the year.
The Rollers have gone from strength to strength since their victory over Canada at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, winning the 2009 world cup and the 2010 world championships to stamp their authority on the competition.
But Simmons, 34, believes their continued dominance is in part due to their refusal to accept that very fact.
“Being the favourites is something we don’t really talk about or acknowledge.
“It’s not a conscious decision, but we basically want to stick to the mentality where we’re still the hunter.
“We sit back and know that teams are trying chase us down and knock us off the top rung but we’ve very much got the mentality where we say `hey, we’re hunting whatever team we go out there to play.”
The Rollers have got their sights set on their first consecutive Olympic victories in London, having won their only other gold in Atlanta in 1996.
They qualified for the upcoming Games with an easy victory over Japan in the Asia Oceania championships in November, thumping them 69-48 to earn a London berth, as did the Gliders in the women’s competition.
The men’s squad is one of the last teams to be decided, and Simmons – who has just quit his day job as a digital marketer with Tourism Queensland to focus on London – said Australia will have a wealth of choices before it.
Nine of the 12 who went to Beijing are up for selection again – with Troy Sachs, Brendan Dowler and Adrian King having retired – and Simmons is impressed at the young talent creeping up.
King, incidentally, was the man at the shopping centre who first appealed to Simmons to try the sport out.
Simmons lost the use of his legs after a motorbike accident.
“We’ve got 21 guys here in Canberra and they’re all putting their hand up high and saying `pick me’,” Simmons said.
“The strength of our team is experience and knowing each other’s games, but we’ve got juniors coming through every state in the country and we’ve got a few young guys who are 19 and 20-year-olds really pushing us older guys along.”
Jannik Blair and John McPhail, both part of the Rollers’ 2009 world cup victory, are two such youngsters likely to challenge for spots.
Top of the schedule for the Rollers over the next few months is a camp at the AIS’s overseas base in Italy, followed by a four-team European competition.
