This Saturday evening in the incandescent arenas of Mont-de-Marsan (Landes), the former basketball glory led his team to a coronation against Elan Souémontain Montgaillardais Sarraziétois (107 to 98).
Former NBA champion Boris Diaw achieved his “kid’s dream”by winning with his club Biscarrosse the Coupe des Landes, an amateur competition which unleashes passions locally, Saturday evening in the arenas of Mont-de-Marsan.
His team, which plays in Departmental 3, triumphed 107 to 98 over Elan Souémontain Montgaillardais Sarraziétois (ESMS, Nationale 2) in front of more than 8,000 people, on a floor assembled above a track usually dedicated to bullfighting. At 42, Diaw, whose team started the match with a 49-point lead due to the seven divisions difference between the two teams, scored 8 points.
Tony Parker present
This departmental competition created in 1946, driven by historic village rivalries and nicknamed the “Landes World Cup”arouses great enthusiasm in the region, to the point of being considered the most popular and passionate of amateur basketball in France.
With more than 150 kilos of duck hearts and thousands of sausages/fries served by an army of volunteers, packed arenas flown over by a Rafale plane from the Mont-de-Marsan air base before a match punctuated by music of the «bands»the final took on the appearance of «Superbowl» with Gascon sauce. “I never saw that ! It’s huge and great for French basketball. When Boris told me that there were nearly 10,000 people, I didn’t believe it, I wanted to be there for the final.French basketball star Tony Parker, with whom Diaw was crowned NBA champion with the Spurs in 2014, reacted to AFP, present in the audience.
Boris Diaw, who spent part of his youth in the Landes, came out of retirement this season to “make a childhood dream come true” by competing in this competition. “The only opportunity was now, in retirement, coming back with a group of friends”explained to AFP, at the start of the competition, the man who had also been crowned European champion in 2013, always alongside Tony Parker.
