Africa-Press – Angola. The Angolan Paralympic Committee (CPA) needs 230 wheelchairs for the 21 adapted basketball teams in the country, in order to promote more dignity to athletes and improve quality in the sport.
The information was provided by its general secretary António da Luz, as part of the balance of the 18th National Senior Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Championship, held in Lubango from the 10th to the 18th of the current month.
The official said that since 2015 they have not bought chairs, due to lack of sponsorship, but the existing ones lack maintenance and many times there is no replacement capacity because the country does not manufacture.
He said that with this situation, three chairs remained in activity in the teams and to safeguard the national championship, they have 24 chairs that remain with the CPA for the exclusive use of groups in official competitions.
He stressed that now Angola is going to qualify in the African and to play they had to go to South Africa to buy new wheels and axles, having spent close to US$5,000 on 12 chairs for the national team.
António da Luz made it known that each wheelchair costs more than US$500, so it is not easy to buy it all at once for the 21 teams across the country, of which 15 are men’s and six are women’s.
“We need a lot of chairs and this is what we are fighting for, if each provincial governor bought 10 to 15 wheelchairs it would cost more than seven thousand dollars, but as there is no such availability, the committee has to make an effort to gradually buy “, said.
He explained that currently young people do not train with 10 chairs, which would be ideal, but with two to five and they cannot play five against five, so if they had more they would have a more evolved basketball.
António da Luz recalled that if the committee were to buy the 230 wheelchairs needed, it would have to stop competitions for two years to raise money to purchase them.
He said they do not have a fixed budget, as it depends on the financial quota that the ministry receives, as for years they have received 20 to 100 million kwanzas, but the CPA needs at least 400 million kwanzas annually.
Championships to be played
In June of the current year, the CPA holds the Angola Cup and soon after, the national pre-selection will be called up for the African games, the first Paralympic games in Africa, to be held in Ghana in September of the current year.
In terms of internal competitions, the super cup in amputee football takes place in June and the opening of the sport’s season, the National Athletics Championship on track, the last competition before leaving for the World Championship in the same modality in July in city of Paris, France.
After this, the National Football Championship for amputees takes place, then the national women’s basketball, which will be in its second edition with seven teams, followed by swimming and other sports.
The CPA controls more than two thousand athletes practicing Paralympic sport in the country.
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