Canadian Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Team Misses Opportunity to Compete at 2014 World Championship

Americas Cup(Bogota, Colombia) The Canadian Senior Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team will miss the opportunity to compete at the 2014 World Championship after a 67-57 loss to Mexico in the quarter-finals at the 2013 Americas Cup on Friday evening in Bogota, Colombia.

“I am very disheartened by today’s result, not only for the loss but also for the missed opportunity for one of the best wheelchair basketball programs in the world to compete at the 2014 World Championship,” said Jerry Tonello, head coach of the Canadian team. “We remain committed to building upon our success to date and to learning from our mistakes.”

“Obviously it’s a disappointing result for the program, but we will use this loss as motivation in the future,” said Team Canada veteran Bo Hedges. “We’ve bounced back from adversity in the past and we will shift our focus to the Toronto 2015 Parapan American Games and qualifying for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games to defend our title.”

Nik Goncin (Regina, Sask.) was the top scorer for Canada with 25 points. Teammate David Eng (Montreal, Qc.) also chipped in 17 points in the contest.

Team Canada will face Brazil to determine fifth place at 1:15 p.m. ET on Saturday.

“We’ve bounced back from adversity in the past and we will shift our focus to … qualifying for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games to defend our title.”

Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and the United States advanced from the quarter-finals on Friday and, as the top four teams, qualified to represent the Americas zone at the world championship.

The 2014 Men’s World Wheelchair Basketball Championship is set for July 1-12, 2014 in Incheon, South Korea.

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