Wheelchair Basketball athlete Nik Goncin shares his thoughts ahead of the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
Blog #2
It is April 4 and I’m currently sitting on a plane en route to Spain for our staging event before our much-anticipated Paralympic qualifying event, the IWBF Repechage Tournament in Antibes, France from April 12-15. Lots of preparation has happened since we last spoke, nothing out of the ordinary but an extra level of deliberation given the consequences that lie ahead depending on our outcome in the Repechage tournament.
March felt a bit unusual from a training standpoint. My club team had our last tournament at the end of February which left a lot of time in between competitive games, something that isn’t often the case. In season, it’s not often we go four weeks without playing any competitive games, but unfortunately that is the way the schedule worked out this year. What this meant for me was that I needed to find a way to add volume to my already busy schedule, in an attempt to make up for the lack of games. About two-thirds of our national team resides in Canada during the season and we’re all faced with a similar gap in games.
Following our performance in the Parapan American Games in November 2023, we knew that we would be attending this last-chance qualifier, so we sat down and tried to map out what the next several months would look like. The main focus was trying to stay connected with one another and get a reasonable amount of competition and training in so we all felt prepared going into France.
January was jam packed with domestic competitions and our national team had enough funding to send a squad to Colorado Springs in late February to compete against USA and Italy which was a great. March looked bleak for competitions so we athletes took it upon ourselves to organize some games in Toronto against a collection of some of the best domestic players we have in Canada to give us a push and really just be together.
Much can be said about just spending time with one another outside of events organized by our National Sport Organization, Wheelchair Basketball Canada. We are lucky in Canada that we allow anyone to play wheelchair basketball, disability or not. What that has done is develop several elite Canadian players that are not classifiable to play internationally and so we bring them together a few times a year to help our national teams prepare without having to leave the country. Our own mini-scout team!
These players are one of the biggest reasons I was able to develop so quickly when I began playing in the late 2000’s. With the classification system we use, having able-bodied players compete has no negative impact on lower classification players, an argument I often hear and one I wholeheartedly disagree with.
Getting together outside of officially planned events can be incredibly difficult, particularly for team sport athletes in Canada. Unlike European countries where athletes can just hop in the car and meet with each other within a few hours somewhere, the vast majority of us live a flight apart. Toronto generally makes the most sense for getting together as most cities offer a direct flight option. We also have the most flexibility with booking gym times through our past residence at the Pan-Am Centre.
However, even small get-togethers like the one we planned can be difficult financially for a lot of the players. To try and help with costs, the athletes that live in the surrounding Toronto area help with transport and some of us stay with family or friends for the weekend to be able to come and compete together. We, unfortunately, are at a major disadvantage compared to many other nations when it comes to time spent together.
As soon as I got back from Toronto, I spent the rest of the week working, training, and preparing for our trip to Europe. Oftentimes for big tournaments like this, we will participate in some sort of staging event prior to the official games. It is a cost-effective way to piggyback a major trip with some less stressful, but still deliberate time competing with one another. As we can’t get together as often for all the reasons I stated above, these staging events are incredibly important for us.
Teamwork takes effort, from all parties and timing is everything in our sport. We need to execute individual skills while simultaneously doing so in unison with one other. Although we have spent a lot of time together over the years, it often takes a little bit of time to get back on that same page..
To qualify for the Paralympics, we need to finish Top 4 at this tournament in France. There are eight teams and all of them are fully capable of qualifying. We will play three games against the teams in our pool and based on those results we will crossover with one team in the other pool. That fourth game, on April 15, against whichever team it ends up being will be the must win game. If you win your crossover game, you qualify, end of story.
I’ve heard many people in our community speak about this possibly being the most competitive tournament ever in wheelchair basketball as the disparity between the teams is almost non-existent. I feel good, prepared, ready to take it all in, now let’s go get it.
Nik
IWBF Repechage Tournament Schedule
*SK times
April 12 – Round Robin: Canada vs. Netherlands, 7:30 a.m.
April 13 – Round Robin: France vs. Canada, 10:00 a.m.
April 14 – Round Robin: Canada vs. Iran, 5:15 a.m.
April 15 – Crossover Game: TBD
Games are available to watch on CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca and the CBC Sports app.
Blog #1
To start, I never really know how to begin a blog. I think this might stem from never feeling fully comfortable talking about myself. I often would rather talk about the person I’m talking to, or whatever the thing is we are talking about. Those that know me, know I love a good debate, but I rarely choose to talk about the things that are going on in my life, so here it goes…
I have been playing wheelchair basketball at a competitive level for almost 15 years now. My very first competition with the Canadian Junior team was in 2009, in Paris. I couldn’t tell you what place we finished, but I certainly can think of many fun off-court moments I shared with my teammates.
I was first introduced to wheelchair basketball in my high school gym class, in Regina. We had the local coach come and teach us how to play and if I had to describe myself, I was the gym class hero. I was always competitive growing up but after I lost my leg, I was on a mission to absolutely demolish anyone at any competition, often taking it too far if I’m honest. Looking back, I felt that sense of pity people had toward my situation and my goal from then on was to dominate at anything I possibly could.
I vowed no one would ever outwork me and most importantly, I would be the last person that would give up in any physical challenge. I excelled at wheelchair basketball quickly. I was not the best at anything, but I only had one gear and that was 100 per cent all the time. It didn’t matter if it was a mundane task, skill, or drill, I was going to give you all of what I can give, all the time.
I remember the gym where it all began, I could tell you the smell, the size, and even how the court felt to step and roll on; the Wascana Rehab Hospital donated gym time to our program twice a week. Wooden backboards, dusty gym floor, low ceilings. On paper it doesn’t sound great, but boy do I have some great memories from that place. I remember the day one of my current teammates came into practice to try it out, never did I think I would share the court with him on the international stage in the future.
I eventually left Regina to attend the University of Illinois on a full-ride scholarship to try out the whole ‘student-athlete’ thing. The Canadian men’s wheelchair basketball coach Mike Frogley was also the head coach in Illinois at the time, which very much influenced my decision to leave my little gym in Regina and try to break onto the men’s Canadian roster. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly. Regina was home – my family, my friends, were all things I had to leave behind to pursue this dream.
Fast forward some time, I am now a two-time Paralympian, (Brazil 2016 and Tokyo 2020) and have competed in 20+ countries representing Canada on the international stage.
My first Paralympics was a bit overwhelming, not having experienced the grind of a two-week centralized tournament and all the distractions that come along with being in the village. The Tokyo Paralympics I felt significantly more prepared for, but the tournament happened during the COVID shut down so none of my family or friends could come and watch which would have been amazing. Now I have my eyes locked in on qualifying and competing for the Paris 2024 Games this summer.
Even though I left, Saskatchewan is where it all began competitively for me, and the support I feel from there today is just as strong, if not stronger than when I initially left for school. I won’t get into names, but there are countless people that had a profound impact on the trajectory of my life (sport, life, and otherwise) and I am so proud to come from such a small but powerful province.
This quadrennial feels different from the last but not because I am getting older, although warming up and stretching sure doesn’t feel like negotiable anymore. We are currently training to qualify for Paris 2024, with our most recent tournament being at the Parapan American Games in Chile at the end of last year. Qualifying is different this year than it has been in the past as they have removed four qualifying spots for Paris. The Paralympics has traditionally been a 12-team tournament, which we would compete to qualify for by winning at your zonal event, in our case the Parapan American games. The number of spots available in your corresponding zonal competition are earned through placing at our World Championship two years prior.
Each zone (Oceanic, Americas, Europe and Africa) was given one spot to qualify and then the top eight teams at World’s earned additional spots to qualify in their zones. With only eight total teams qualifying for the Paralympics this year, the format was changed. No spots are automatically given to each zone, rather the top four teams at World’s earn one spot for their zonal and the next best four teams (Places 5-8) earn zonal spots to a last chance qualifier. For the Parapan American Games, our zone had one spot to Paris and two spots to the last chance qualifying tournament in Nice, France in April. We finished third in Chile, edging out Argentina in the bronze medal game for the last qualifying spot for the repechage tournament in April. It will be an eight-team tournament over four days and the top four teams will earn the last four spots to the Paris Paralympics.
That brings us to present day. The easy route to qualify would have been to finished first in Chile but we love to make it hard on ourselves, so we’ll just have to get it done in April. All the teams that will be at that tournament will be great, by no means will it be a walk in the park. Until then, we are all at home training, getting together a handful of times to play some games, ideally monthly. Unlike many countries, Canada has a massive geographic footprint, which can make it difficult to get together on a regular basis and we generally, we meet in Toronto or somewhere internationally to compete. My next tournament is toward the end of February, where we will all meet up in Colorado to play some friendly games (definitely not actually friendly) against Italy and USA.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, time to get back to work.
-Nik Goncin-