Silver Medal for the Rollers

With eyes set on a back to back Paralympic Gold, Canada was just too much for the Rollers in the gold medal play-off.

Australia finished the game 58-64 to Canada, claiming the yet still impressive silver medal. 

The Western Australian and WAIS trio of Shaun Norris (19), Justin Eveson (16) and Brad Ness (12) led the scoring for the Rollers.

Rollers coach Ben Ettridge admitted his disappointment at missing out on back to back Paralympic titles.

“For me it’s just disappointing for 17 guys who’ve been here the past 30 days. I’ve spent the last 453 days thinking about them and getting to this point in time. I’m disappointed in the result but couldn’t be prouder of everyone involved.”

“It was a great tussle between two teams who’ve been competing for the gold medal and who’ve won the gold medal over the last four Paralympics, so to put on a show like that, a six-point game, a back and forward affair, with the best player in the world against the best team in the world, it’s good for wheelchair basketball moving forward.”

Norris, a WAIS gold medallist from Beijing, said it was difficult to process the match.

“It’s difficult to accept at the moment, coming second. With time I’ll be happier with what we’ve achieved, but today they came out and unfortunately they were better. It’s the first time we fell short, so it’s just one of those things.”

Even though it was hard, he was impressed and thankful for the London crowd.

“It’s fantastic, the best crowd we’ve ever had. They’ve done a good job,” he said.