Wheelchair Basketball Disabled Basketball

Wheelchair basketball is a sport based around basketball but is designed for disabled people in wheelchairs. Wheelchair basketball is one of the major disabled sports played. It is estimated that over 100,000 people play wheelchair basketball whether at recreational level or national team members.

The governing body for Wheelchair Basketball is IWBF - The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation.

The sport is growing and sees quite a lot of competition and interest and is part of the Paralympic Games and there is also a Gold Cup 2 years after the Paralympics.

The best national teams include Canada, Australia, Great Britain, USA, Brazil,Japan and the Netherlands.

The rules of Wheelchair Basketball are quite similar to normal basketball but there are some rules that are modified for wheelchairs and some places have slightly different sets of rules.

E.g. Travelling in wheelchair basketball is when a player touches his wheels more than twice, after touching his wheels twice the player has to pass, bounce or shoot before touching their wheels again otherwise it is a foul.

Wheelchair basketball is played on a full size basketball court with the same scores for a basket and the same 10' hoop.

Wheelchairs must not exceed the height of 21' from the floor and there are various other rules about the type of wheelchairs that can be used.

In Wheelchair Basketball the wheelchair is considered part of the player so you often see wheelchairs charging into each other which is quite exciting!

More detailed rules

I don't play however I have great respect for the people who play this game. It is a very exciting sport and a really good one too. When you see what some of these people can do in wheelchairs it is amazing! Also players often fall over but they just get up straight away even though they have disabilities unlike football players!

It is a really hard sport to play and yet some of the players are absolutely fantastic and are so fast, so brave and so skilful it is unbelievable. It is also a great sport as it shows that just because you might be disabled does not mean you can have fun and be active!

Watch the videos below to see just a sample of what the sport is like.

So there you go you now know some of the basic information about wheelchair basketball. I think it really is a fantastic sport and should be more widely played!  

It just proves that even though some people might be disabled they can still achieve more than people who are not disabled.  These guys are like 10 times better than me at basketball!

I hope you have found this hub informative and it is part of the disabilities HubMob.  

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