Wheelchair Basketball: Ross called up to GB juniors

Published on Thursday 28 May 2009 09:43

EDINBURGH'S Steven Ross, who completed the domestic season this month by helping Lothian Phoenix gain promotion to the GB Wheelchair Basketball Association's Division 1 (North) for the first time, has received his first call-up to the GB junior side.

He had been the team's first reserve for this weekend's Astra Tech Junior Challenge at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium in Buckinghamshire but yesterday, when a team-mate pulled out injured, he was brought in as the team's first Scottish player.

Steven, 17, who began the sport less than two years ago, has been training with Great Britain's junior squad for the past two months but sees this tournament – against teams from Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden – as the perfect opportunity to prove himself.

"I was really disappointed not to be named in the original team so it was brilliant news to get the call last night asking me to play," he said. "I have been training at the High Performance Centre in Carlisle every Wednesday as well as going to squad training camps at Stoke Mandeville.

"The camps are really hard and you are training four times a day for two hours straight. I can definitely see the improvement and it gives me the chance to compare myself against the best players of my age and aim to get better than them."