Tara Feser is taking nothing for granted at the Team Canada selection camp for the 2012 Paralympic Summer Games.
The St. Albert wheelchair basketball player will join 19 hopefuls competing for 12 roster spots when tryouts start Jan. 8 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“It’s wide open regardless of who you are,” said Feser, a national team player since 2008. “My role for this camp is to make the others who are trying out look good while making myself look good without being selfish out there.”
Canada qualified for the Aug. 29 to Sept. 9 Paralympics in London, Eng., with a second-place finish at the Parapan American Games last month in Guadalajara, Mexico.
“It was great. That was our next goal that we had to complete,” Feser said. “We were very happy when we came through with silver at the end and we were a shoe-in for London.”
In pool play Canada rolled over Brazil 67-49, Argentina 54-18 and El Salvador 57-18. In the semifinal Canada defeated Mexico 71-59 and in the final lost 69-31 to the United States.
Brazil placed third and will join Canada and the United States in the 10-team draw in London.
“We did very well throughout the tournament but the last game we would like to erase,” Feser said. “I liked how we had very good composure against some of the teams that we just blew out of the water. We could’ve blown them out 100-0 but we went out and worked on some things we needed to work on, rather than kind of diminishing their play, so it was good.”
In the playoffs Feser grabbed two defensive rebounds and had two assists against Mexico and was 0-4 in field goal attempts during 11:22 minutes on the court against the United States.
“In the last two games I had my typical role of coming off the bench and just being strong and aggressive as much as I can,” she said. “It was a good tournament to play different roles throughout the round robin and then play our typical roles in the last two games. We were playing some weaker teams in the round robin so we played very different line-ups and tried different things and tried to learn how to work together with other players.”
The 31-year-old post player has been hampered by a nagging right shoulder injury for most of the season but is still able to contribute.
“Unfortunately it’s going to be there until I get it fixed,” she said. “We’re working on it and it’s actually getting much better. We’re hoping it will stay just about as good as it is now until London so it’s just a maintenance phase right now.”
Canada’s co-captain at the 2010 worlds feels the pain when shooting a lot.
“In a game it’s actually fine because I don’t do a lot of shooting compared to what I do in a practice. I can’t just go in a practice and do 200 shots in a row because that’s when it starts to hurt, but in a game you only shoot once a possession or maybe a couple of times during a possession so it doesn’t hurt as much.”
Next week, after a brief stay in St. Albert for the holidays, Feser will rejoin the Trier Dolphins, a semi-pro co-ed wheelchair basketball club Germany, before heading to the selection camp. Her second season with the first division squad ends in April.
The 2010 Wheelchair Basketball Canada female athlete of the year is one of three national team players with the Dolphins. Three more Canadians will join the team in preparation for the Paralympics.
“Four of us will play with Trier and the other two will practice and help us out that way,” Feser said. “Playing with each other every day is going to help us for London.”
Leading up to the Paralympics the national team will be centralized in Winnipeg for three months during the summer.
“It’s a big step for the program. It’s the first time for something like that,” said Feser, a two-time NCAA champion with the University of Alabama Crimson Tide in 2009 and 2010.
At the 2008 Paralympics in China, Canada finished fifth with Feser in the line-up.
Canada is the only wheelchair basketball team to win three Paralympic gold medals in row (1992, 1996 and 2000) and four-straight world championships (1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006).
In the world rankings Canada is listed third behind the United States and Germany.
“We have a lot to prove in London,” Feser said.
