The city of Funchal, in Madeira, hosted the city, in Madeira, with the Athletes with Down, between September 29 and this Monday, competition in the quality of Portugal from Monday to the bronze medal in our modality. In judo, the other modality of the competition, our country won gold five times, a silver medal and bronze medals. It should be noted that Italy was the winner of the basketball tournament.

In statements to the FPB, José Costa Pereira, President of ANDDI (National Sports Association for Intellectual Development), re-escalated the event: “It was very good, it was the third World Cup with both modalities, the previous one being held in Guimarães. Italy has always won these competitions. When we started with this variant of basketball, it was still 3×3, we moved to 4×4, but maybe from 2025 we made the jump to 5×5. Although Turkey was not present, two new teams entered, including non-European ones (Saudi and Saudi Arabia and Mexico), and the USA ended up not participating. Our team started is something anxious, with half of it made up of athletes from Madeira and other players from the mainland FC Porto and a girl, Beatriz, from Setúbal. There are difficulties in bringing the entire financial team together. The Madeirans trained in Madeira and the mainlanders in Coimbra. We are evolving along the competition. We were aware that Hungary, the defeated finalists, were very strong, but curiously, we were the ones who gave Italy the most fight. We entered the last quarter trailing by one point, we even had the advantage, but we lost by four points. I could dream of the final. It’s a different kind of basketball, but it’s still basketball”, but it’s still basketball.

As for the main challenges for the future, the following stated: “We want to improve the arranger’s performance, so that they become better with better conditions and new players, which are not easy. Our reality is not made up of clubs, many of these youngsters don’t have an easy back. Most players are institutionalized. The first four places are occupied by European teams, now Mexico has appeared, which has a lot of room for progression. You have to work well. With a little more luck we reached the final at this Worlds, and in a final anything can happen”, he concluded.

Note: Photo taken from Anddi Portugal’s official Facebook

Athletes | competitions

3 OUT 2022