Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team at the 2012 Summer Paralympics

Prior to the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, the Australian women's national wheelchair basketball team, known as the Gliders, had won silver at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney and the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens, and bronze at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, but had never won gold. The announcement of the membership of the Paralympic team was made on 5 July 2012. The team of twelve included nine veterans with 15 Paralympic Games between them: Bridie Kean, Amanda Carter, Sarah Stewart, Tina McKenzie, Kylie Gauci, Katie Hill, Cobi Crispin, Clare Nott and Shelley Chaplin. Amber Merritt, Sarah Vinci and Leanne Del Toso were newcomers competing at their first Paralympics. Kean, aged 25, was selected as their captain. Merritt had averaged 20 points and 8.4 rebounds per game in the Gliders' World Challenge series against Japan, Germany and China in Sydney in July 2012, including a game against Germany in which she scored 21 points and eight rebounds. Another young player from whom much was hoped was Cobi Crispin, who had been named Australian Women's Wheelchair Basketball International Player of the Year in 2011, and had since posted impressive performances in the May 2012 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester and the Gliders World Challenge. Source: Basketball Australia; International Games as at 29 August 2012 from Official Results Book, p. 4152. ==Group stage==

The first part of the competition was the group stage. The Gliders' pool included Brazil, Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. The Gliders' head coach, John Triscari, admitted Canada and the Netherlands would be hard to beat: Brazil Report: : The Gliders' first game was on 30 August in front of a crowd of 3,288 at the Basketball Arena in Olympic Park in Stratford, London; a venue also known as "The Marshmallow". The Gliders had not played Brazil in four years, and what little they knew about them came from watching videotapes. The scores were tied fifteen times, and at no point were the Australians more than five points in front. With six minutes to go in the final quarter, the Gliders were up by only two points, with the score 45–43. Crispin was sent to the free-throw line where she extended her team's lead to 47–43. A technical foul saw her straight back to the free-throw line to make it 48–43, the Gliders' biggest lead of the game. Brazil then struck back, scoring five unanswered points to tie the score again at 48–48, but Merritt scored one from the paint to put the Gliders back in front. She followed by taking a defensive rebound and then another shot to make it 52–48. Brazil scored once more, but time ran out, and the Gliders won, 52–50. Leading scorers for the Gliders were Crispin with 18 points and Merritt with 16. Great Britain Report: The Gliders' next match was against Great Britain, and was held at the North Greenwich Arena, which could accommodate a larger crowd than the Marshmallow. A crowd of 5,331 saw a low-scoring affair. The Gliders concentrated on defence, and led by only 11–5 at quarter time. By halftime, they had extended their lead to 25–11. The third quarter went badly for Team Great Britain, which only scored three more points to Australia's 14, making the score 39–14 at three-quarter time. The final quarter was Great Britain's best, but the score was still 51–24. Merritt and Crispin were again the Gliders' top scorers, with 10 and 8 points respectively, but they moved the ball around, and every Glider except McKenzie scored at least two points. Source: Women's Wheelchair Basketball – Group A Preliminary – Australia vs Great Britain – Statistics Canada Report: |alt=Wheelchair basketball players move across the court. Four are from Australia and one from Canada. The Gliders returned to the Marshmallow the next day for a match against Canada, another team considered a strong chance for a medal, in front of a capacity crowd of 7,200. The Gliders squandered early opportunities, and Chaplin, with eight points, five rebounds and seven assists. The loss raised the prospect that Australia might not make the finals at all, but Crispin remained confident that they could. Merritt said that she had "the utmost respect for Canada. They're a great team, but we'll refocus on the game tomorrow and go out and play like we know we can, the Australian way." Source: Women's Wheelchair Basketball – Group A Preliminary – Australia vs Canada – Statistics Netherlands Report: behind her|alt=Wheelchair basketball players on the court The loss to Canada meant that the Gliders needed a win against the Netherlands, who were considered one of the competition's best teams, and who had beaten Canada. Crispin told the media that "We will go out like we have in every other game and stick to our game plan and hopefully we'll come out on top". Once again Merritt led Australia's scoring, with 19 points and considerably improved accuracy of 9 shots from 14 attempts, while Crispin had ten points and seven rebounds. The rest of the team performed equally well. Stewart scored six points and five rebounds. Chaplin's reputation as a play-maker was burnished with four rebounds and seven assists. Gauci had eight points and six assists. Nott had played all 40 minutes of the game against Canada the night before, then over 32 minutes in this game, ==Finals==

{{Round8 Quarterfinal – Mexico Report: The loss to Canada meant that the Gliders had won three out of four games, the same number as Canada and the Netherlands. Since Australia had lost to Canada by 7 points and defeated the Netherlands by 9, and the Netherlands had defeated Canada by 11 points, a tiebreaker on points differential gave Australia 9 – 7 = +2, Netherlands 11 – 9 = +2, and Canada 7 – 11 = -4. Canada therefore finished third, while Australia, tied with the Netherlands, was placed ahead of them based on defeating them in their match. As a result, the Gliders topped their pool, and received a quarterfinal berth against Mexico, which had managed to qualify despite only winning one game. Triscari was confident, but was not taking the match lightly. He cautioned the media: The Gliders planned to dominate Mexico early, playing as aggressively against them as they had played against the Netherlands. Australia's first shots at goal were taken by Kean from the free-throw line, but she missed both. Mexico's Lucia Vazquez Delgadillo then opened the scoring to give Mexico a two-point lead, which turned out to be their biggest of the game. Gauci then put points on the scoreboard for the Gliders. Mexico turned the ball over, and Crispin got her first from the paint, assisted by Gauci, which was repeated on the next play, with Stewart providing the assist this time. Mexico scored, but the Gliders responded with another shot from Crispin. On the next play, Gauci stole the ball and charged down the court, but failed to make the shot. Nott then took a defensive rebound, leading to Crispin scoring again. She was also fouled, but missed the resulting free throw. Shortly thereafter, Stewart drew another foul, and made both shots to bring the score to 14–4. Mexico had six team turnovers to the Gliders' one, and wound up with 19 turnovers in total to Australia's 6. Australia scored 18 points from turnovers, compared to 6 for Mexico. Gauci, a two-point player, took a three-pointer to take the score to 17–8. Mexico was unable to recover from Australia's high scoring from Merritt, who ultimately scored 14 points with 70 per cent shooting, and Crispin, who scored twelve points with 67 per cent shooting. The teams went into the quarter-time break with the score 21 points to 10. Mexico fell further behind in the second quarter. Amanda Carter immediately stole the ball from Mexico, which let Merritt score two points. A few minutes later, Carter, assisted by Chaplin, scored a basket from the paint, and was fouled in the process. A successful free throw made the score 36–16. Another steal by Merritt led to a fast break, bringing her contribution to ten points, and the score to 38–16. At the halftime break, the score was 44–20. Source: Women's Wheelchair Basketball – Quarterfinal – Australia vs Mexico – Statistics Semifinal – United States Report: attempts to block. In the semifinal, the Gliders had to beat the reigning champions, Team USA, in front of a small crowd of 4,428 at the North Greenwich Arena. Team USA had first possession and earned the first points of the game, but both teams' shooting was poor, and the score was only 10–12 at quarter time. Trailing 40–37 with less than 30 seconds to play, America's Desi Miller scored to have the USA trail by a point. Deliberately fouling Merrit put Miller out of the game, and sent Merritt to the free-throw line. It was a risk, but it paid off; Merritt missed both shots. The second was rebounded by Team USA's Rebecca Murray, who took the ball down the court, in the face of the Gliders' relentless defence. The ball was passed to Rose Hollermann, at 16 the youngest of Team USA's players. Spectators saw Hollermann's shot from the paint hit the ring with a second to go, but the shot clock was not reset. Team USA's Alana Nichols rebounded, and put the ball in the bucket, but not before time ran out and a shot clock violation was called. This left Australia with possession. In another 1.9 seconds, it was all over, and Australia had a controversial one-point win. Source: Women's Wheelchair Basketball – Semifinal – Australia vs United States – Statistics Gold medal match – Germany Report: The Gliders would have to defeat Germany in front of a capacity crowd of 12,985 at the North Greenwich Arena to win the gold medal. and at that point had beaten them three of the previous four times they had played. , Marina Mohnen, Gesche Schünemann, Edina Müller and Maria Kühn, and Australia's Clare Nott. Once again, Stewart took the opening tip. A defensive rebound by Kean after Germany missed two free throws resulted in the Gliders scoring first, with Gauci assisting Crispin. The Gliders used the same game plan that had defeated the United States, employing a strong defence against a normally high-scoring team. At first, they were successful; with three minutes to go in the quarter, despite several missed shots, Australia was ahead 10–4. In the last minutes, Germany scored ten points that gave them a 10–14 lead at quarter time. Triscari felt that the Gliders did not put enough pressure on the Germans, and that their shooting was not accurate enough. In particular, they scored a dismal one point from twelve attempts from the free throw line. In May 2013, Tom Kyle was appointed the Gliders' new head coach. "We have had the opportunity to play Germany a fair bit in our preparation so our game plan was to have strong defensive pressure and take it from there", Kean told the media. It was not to be. The Gliders did not qualify for the 2016 Rio Paralympics after finishing second to China at the 2015 Asia Oceania Qualifying Tournament. Source: Women's Wheelchair Basketball – Gold Medal Game – Statistics Source: Women's Wheelchair Basketball – Statistics ==References==