WILLETTON Tigers men's State Basketball League player Lee Nott will spend the next month in a frustrating position on the sidelines after his team forfeited its spot in the finals due to an administrative error.
But it is better news for his wife Clare, who was chosen to represent Australia in wheelchair basketball at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
It will be Clare's second appearance at the Paralympic Games after playing for the bronze medal-winning team in Beijing in 2008.
She said the team was hoping to go for gold in London after recently beating Germany at the 2012 Rollers and Gliders World Challenge in Sydney.
“The team has come on in leaps and bounds since Beijing but so have all the other countries, so I think the competition will be a lot stronger in London,” she said.
Clare, who became a paraplegic after she was in a car accident as a three-year-old, has progressed quickly in the sport after leaving the swimming pool and going on to the court in 2004.
“My mum got me into swimming as a part of hydrotherapy when I was a child and that developed into competitive sport,” she said.
“But I wasn't enjoying swimming – you can’t socialise with your head under water – so as soon as I turned 18, I stopped swimming and decided to try wheelchair basketball.”
- The Gliders will compete in Amsterdam before heading to a training camp in Cardiff, Wales, ahead off tipping off their Paralympic Games campaign at the end of August.