Women’s wheelchair basketball team fall at quarter-final stage

ParalympicsGB put in a commendable performance but the women’s wheelchair basketball team failed to progress through the quarter-finals with a 47-33 loss to China.

Great Britain will now contest the seventh and eighth play-off after China largely dominated the contest at the Ariake Arena.

A rapid start from Chinese team saw them surge ahead early on as, despite a decent defensive performance, GB found it difficult to score and were lagging 14-5 after the first ten minutes.

In the second quarter, China really started to run away with it, but Great Britain kept the pressure on with the speed of Maddie Thompson proving key to their offensive play.

The partnership of Amy Conroy and Sophie Carrigill started to shine as they created plenty of opportunities but China’s scoring was too consistent as they went into half-time 27-14 ahead.

Great Britain started to reel in their opponents during the third quarter, creating plenty of good looks and open shots en route to scoring ten points but it wasn’t enough as China’s Huang Xiaolian and Lin Suiling kept the scoreboard ticking and extended the lead to 38-24.

Helen Freeman began to find her rhythm with a couple of great shots in the final quarter, while Joy Haizelden sunk an incredible two-pointer but China’s defensive prowess around the key stymied ParalympicsGB for the final few minutes.

China sealed a 47-33 win, making history by reaching their first Paralympics semi-final, and are set to play USA, while GB will face Spain for seventh.

Conroy said: “I could not be prouder of them [her teammates] right now. Everyone’s had a tough, tough year. I know the whole world has.

“We’ve had people in the team lose people and I believe in this team so much. It just makes me so sad.

“We came in expecting to play like we did in training and it doesn’t work like that.

“I’m gutted but this year has given everyone perspective and we’re going to come together.”

Robyn Love added: “The luck just wasn’t on our side unfortunately and in this game, you really have to persevere and battle through which I think we did but China just put up a fight.

“They’re a really tough opponent that we’ve not seen since 2016 when we faced them in the quarter-final in Rio. We won that game - different story back then.

“For us, as GB, we’re just going to reflect because we’ve got Europeans in a couple of months, and we’ve also got one more game left so we’ve got to regroup and come back together.”