Inspiring

people and

breathtaking

competitions.

Wheelchair Basketball

Wheelchair basketball was first played in 1945 at a war veteran hospital in the United States. Independently, the game also emerged at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Great Britain in 1948. It is one of the core adaptive sports and has been part of the Invictus Games since the first Games were held in London in 2014. Wheelchair basketball is a fast-paced, very agile and passionate inclusive sport. It follows the rules of running basketball and uses the same basket and court dimensions. Games are played over two periods of 12 minutes, semi-finals and finals over two periods of 15 minutes. The aim is for players to score in the opponent’s basket and win more points than the other team.

Wheelchair basketball is played by two teams of five. Athletes with and without impairments can play and compete together in this sport. The tournament is open to mixed-gender teams. There are no minimum requirements for the number of women and men on the teams. Based on a functional classification system, all competitors are assigned a point value between one and three points, depending on their sport-specific abilities on the court (e.g. wheelchair handling, dribbling or passing skills). The lower the level of impairment, the more points are assigned. The five players on the court for each team at any one time can have a maximum number of 14 points in total.