Basketball New Zealand

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Junior Tall Black Dion Prewster (Photosport)

Basketball New Zealand, the Auckland City Council and North Shore City Council will learn this weekend if they have won the rights to host next year’s FIBA Men’s U19 World Championships.

Representatives are in Beijing for formal presentations to the FIBA Central Board on Saturday. The contest to stage the tournament, a significant launching pad for future international and NBA stars, is down to two candidates – the other is oil-rich Bahrain.

Auckland emerged as the preferred New Zealand host city after FIBA officials visited in March, also inspecting facilities in Wellington and Christchurch. Vector Arena would be the principal venue, with pool games proposed for the North Shore Events Centre and ASB Stadium.

“For a number of years, this country has been developing a worldwide reputation as a country of champions that can host a variety of sports events to the highest of international standards,” says BBNZ chief executive Dale Stephens.

“This opportunity to host a major basketball tournament is the culmination of many years of development of the sport in New Zealand. Basketball New Zealand has secured the support of key partners to ensure that the highest quality tournament and experience is available to all participants.”

The national body and city councils have been backed by letters of support from the Government, the National Party, FIBA Oceania and SPARC.

If they succeed, the world junior tournament will be the most important basketball event staged in New Zealand so far, further enhancing this country’s standing in the sport. Later this year, the NZ Tall Ferns will attend their third consecutive Olympic Games and the Tall Blacks still have a chance of qualifying for their third Olympics, having participated in the last two world championships.

Both men and women won silver medals at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

If New Zealand is awarded the world junior championships, the Junior Tall Blacks will receive automatic entry to the draw, providing another wave of Kiwi hoopsters with exposure to international basketball.

“One of the factors that helped the Tall Blacks perform on the world stage over recent years was the opportunity for many of us to contest the 1997 FIBA U23 World Championships in Australia,” says former Tall Black player, now video technician, Dillon Boucher.

“That tournament really gave us a taste of international basketball and showed competing at that level was not beyond our reach. Hopefully, our achievements with the Tall Blacks have inspired the next generation of basketball talent in New Zealand and this U19 event should provide a springboard for those young players into the national men’s team.”