“Dreams sometimes come true” says Andrea Dreini, coach and player of the Las Pezia Pirates (and national manager of Uisp Basketball), the Uisp wheelchair basketball team that will debut tomorrow, even if in reduced ranks due to the aftermath of Covid-19 , in the national championship. “In 2018 a group of girls and boys turned to Uisp to be able to continue a wheelchair basketball experience, born a few years earlier. Thanks to Uisp La Spezia and Valdimagra, as well as two projects financed by the Liguria region called ‘Insieme si Thanks to the generosity of the Sick Assistance Committee of the engineer Alfredo Perioli, thanks to the Asd Basket Giovane Claudio Papini, we were able to find a stable gym in Montepertico, 11 sports wheelchairs and start this beautiful path “. “It is a privilege to be on the field – tells us Alessandro Sturlese, from La Spezia and national manager of Uisp Basketball -, to listen to the stories and dreams of girls and boys with difficult life experiences and with a great passion for basketball. . Now they can finally smile again after two years of pandemic “. The desire to be together, to play, to have fun. This is Uisp wheelchair basketball. The Uisp is concerned, among other things, with encouraging and promoting the widest possible participation of people with disabilities in all ordinary sporting activities, at all levels. The championship brings together people with disabilities and able-bodied people. A team can be made up of anyone, disabled or not. This helps to really feel part of a team and creates empathy, even if most of the participants have disabilities.
The game is the same, but you have one more tool: the competition modes do not change and there are moments of sharing, even off the pitch, which stimulate life. The Uisp national wheelchair basketball championship yields 5 teams to the starting line: Delfini 2001 from Montecchio Maggiore, Asdre Reggio la Briantea84 Cantù, Wolf Basket Pistoia and the La Pezia Pirates formation from La Spezia. Just tomorrow the Las Pezia Pirates will make their debut against the battleship Briantea Cantù at 15 at the Montepertico Gym: in the field Pietro La Rosa, Roberta De Martino, Giorgio Porpiglia, Gamboni Leonardo, Spella Riccardo, Raggio Manrico, Vincitorio Fabio, Marchini Davide, Andrea Dreini, Paolo La Rosa, Laura Baldi, names of girls and boys who believed in the ‘dream’ of bringing wheelchair basketball to Spezia.
