With the French Embassy as the setting and the desire to reach an Olympic Game for the first time, Argentina formally began its journey towards Paris 2024. Testimonials and details of a transcendental event.
In commemoration of International Women’s Day and with the focus on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Argentine Basketball Confederation (CAB) held an event at the honorable Embassy of France. It was developed in view of the great objective of the Argentine women’s team: to participate for the first time in the history of an Olympic Game.
The meeting was attended by the highest authorities of Argentine basketball, highlighting the participation of Fabián Borro, President of the CAB; Gregorio Martínez, Head Coach of the Argentine National Team; and Karina Rodríguez, National Director of Development. The 10 clubs that make up the fifth season of the Women’s League were part of it, with leaders, coaches and players.
“We are grateful to the French Embassy that opened its doors to us from the first day and accompanies the entire Argentine basketball family at this momentous moment for us. On this very special day of International Women’s Day, we give a formal start to a dream that we have, which is to be able to play an Olympic Game with the Women’s National Team, and without dreams there are no goals. For us this release is very important, we want there to be equality and visibility in women’s basketball. We try to make women’s basketball more and more federal, that our sport is practiced throughout the country and places. The work we are doing together is very important, it is important that we are more equal and make it visible”highlighted Fabián Borro, President of the CAB.
The activities of the day began with a brief introduction to the project that the CAB has been carrying out with women’s basketball in Argentina since the end of 2020, a comprehensive work that has already begun to revolutionize the discipline, with marked progress and an activity that is constantly growing. .
Today the National Team has a team that is as capable as it is broad, with more than 25 people including coaches, physical trainers, medical personnel, props and administrative staff, who accompany the day to day and the evolution of the players. In this order, the presence of the National Training Project (PNF) is also highlighted, one of the most important programs that the Confederation has today in which it aims to recruit young players to develop them and progressively increase the size of the National Team, a relevant detail when competing internationally. The PNF is currently beginning its second year, already with more than 150 young people. We must also highlight the Sports Initiation Schools (EDA), a project that together with the National Sports Secretariat covers all sports and that, focusing on the massification of girls who practice basketball, has already developed more than 50 schools throughout throughout the country.
The results of all this work have already begun to appear, and this has led Argentina to currently rank 1st in South America and 3rd in the entire continent (behind the United States and Canada) within the FIBA Ranking in youth teams, a historic event for remark.
“We are proud to celebrate this day and this meeting with the Argentine Basketball Confederation, in the Franco-Argentine relationship that we nurture and will continue to strengthen day by day. It is an honor to receive the CAB and its athletes, as part of the launch of the path that they will take towards Paris 2024. From the French Embassy we tell the girls that in two years we hope to meet again at the Eiffel Tower. The Argentine National Team has been increasingly reinforcing its importance in the sports landscape, gaining more ground and advancing with firm steps that were reflected in recent times. I always say that in the Embassy there is a little piece of France and Paris, and seeing these elite athletes with such enthusiasm to reach the Olympics fills us with pride”commented Claudia Scherer-Effosse, Ambassador of France since 2019 and one of the first to speak.
Today the country has more than 100 players distributed in the best leagues in the world, accentuating their participation in the highest categories of Spain (where Melisa Gretter, captain and symbol of the National Team plays) and Italy, also highlighting a dozen young people playing in College and universities of the United States. This progression in the number of players abroad occurs within the framework of La Liga Femenina, the most important competition in our country that began its fifth season and eighth edition a few weeks ago.
The League grows year after year, increasing its number of teams and players, remembering that in 2019 5 teams participated and that today, due to a pandemic and reactivating activity in the midst of the already known health situation, it doubled in number and today 10 are active clubs, without losing all its level, prestige and remaining as a talent factory.
Inés Arrondo, Secretary of Sports of the Nation, highlighted: “Today is a very special day, a day where we make visible our struggle to build a better, fair, equal and violence-free world. Those who are here are protagonists of that fight in Argentine basketball, the players who have lived with these inequalities and have had to be strong, a fight that continues knowing that they are the ones who are building a better basketball for our country. For a long time we have been working together with the Confederation for this, we work for a better basketball and a better world. We are transforming all of this into a fight that we are carrying out together in all corners of the country”.
The women’s basketball agenda in 2022 includes multiple challenges, knowing that Argentina will attend the U17 World Cup to be played in Hungary during the month of July, with the U18 litter playing the South American in April and the Americup in June, and the U15 facing his South American in November. However, and as part of the path that will begin towards Paris 2024, the most important strawberries will go to the Major, which from August 1 to 6 will play the South American, still with a venue to be defined and a tournament in which Argentina will defend the crown achieved in Tunja 2018, where he won the title after 70 years.
