Skip to content

Feser rolls to London

Tara Feser can hear London calling with the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games fast approaching. “I can’t wait,” said the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball player from St. Albert who competed at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.
Tara Feser of St. Albert eyes up a shot against double coverage for Canada against The Netherlands at the 2010 World Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Birmingham
Tara Feser of St. Albert eyes up a shot against double coverage for Canada against The Netherlands at the 2010 World Wheelchair Basketball Championships in Birmingham

Tara Feser can hear London calling with the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games fast approaching.

“I can’t wait,” said the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball player from St. Albert who competed at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. “I made the national team right before Beijing so I didn’t have as much time to think about it as I do now about London because I’m already on the team.”

Canada finished fifth in Beijing and is currently ranked third in the world behind the United States and Germany.

“Ever since worlds [in 2010 at Birmingham, England] was over, our main goal has been London. We’re looking at qualifiers too but we’re also looking past that,” said Feser, Canada’s co-captain at worlds.

Leading up to the Paralympic qualifier at the Parapan American Games in November at Guadalajara, Mexico is an upcoming five-team tournament in Charlotte, N.C.

“We’re using it to gauge where we are and also to see where all the other teams are,” Feser said. “The U.S. is what we want to look at because they’re part of the qualifiers in Guadalajara. The U.S. selected their team just about a month ago so we haven’t seen them yet. Germany will be there as well and we saw them in a test series this month when we were over in Germany. We know what to expect from Germany, but we want to get a feel for the other teams and see what we can improve on as well.”

Despite an 0-4 showing at the four-team Paralympic World Cup in May, Feser is confident Canada will rebound with a strong effort in Mexico.

“We didn’t want to peak then obviously, we want to peak in November,” Feser said. “The team performed, I guess, under expected. We thought we would’ve done a little bit better in our round robin games [lost 47-43 to Great Britain, 73-70 in double overtime to Japan and 52-37 to Germany]. Unfortunately things weren’t falling our way but we did learn a lot from that test series in what we basically have to improve on for Guadalajara so we didn’t take it as a negative.”

Feser, 31, was among the team leaders in several categories at the world cup in Manchester, England. In the 55-44 loss to Japan in the bronze playoff, the post player scored nine points, grabbed eight rebounds and had four steals. The 2010 Wheelchair Basketball Canada female athlete of the year was the top player against Germany with 10 points, seven rebounds and three steals.

“Janet McLachlan [Feser’s teammate with the University of Alabama Crimson Tide in 2009 and 2010 and last season with the Trier Dolphins, a semi-pro co-ed wheelchair basketball club] is one of our top scorers and she wasn’t there. I had to step up but unfortunately I was injured so it was a little tough,” Feser said of her right shooting shoulder. “A lot of pressure was put on the rest of the players to try and step up their offensive game when they’re not usually used to that so that’s basically where we need to kind of fine-tune things.”

The wonky shoulder has been slow to heal.

“I’ve had it for almost a year. We’re trying to work though it is the best way to put it. I’m still training as much as I can but I have to take some games off and some practices off. It’s kind of frustrating but my goal is London so I’m making sure it’s 100 per cent for the Paralympics next year,” said the two-time NCAA champion with the Crimson Tide. “My shooting percentage was actually fairly bad in Manchester and unfortunately this was an injury that affected my shots. I can push and wheel and that’s perfectly fine. It’s anything above my shoulder that hurts but over the last couple of months it’s been improving.”

During the recent stint in Germany with the national team, her shoulder was better than expected.

“It was actually pretty good. I was able to come off the bench and I could give it 120 per cent for the 20 minutes I was out there rather than save it for 40 minutes a game,” said the five-foot-10 hoopster, who is classified internationally as a 4.5 player, with full mobility while sitting and can bend up and down and side to side.

At the end of August, the former standup basketball player with the Queen Elizabeth Knights will return to Germany for another eight-month tour of duty with the Dolphins as a player/assistant coach. The Dolphins finished sixth out of 10 teams and missed the playoffs by two spots.

“Last season I improved my speed and skills in general. Having to play against some of those top male athletes playing in Germany is a challenge and if your skills or your speed are not strong, you’re just going to get blown by. Hopefully I improve on that even more this season.”

A number of Feser’s teammates will join her in Trier, the oldest city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle River.

“In January all the players on the team are required to be in Trier or in Alabama so our team will be split up halfway. We won’t be split up individually so everyone has to be in one of the two training centres. Later on in May we’re centralizing as a team in Winnipeg. That’s something we haven’t done for worlds or Beijing, where we actually have two or three months where the team is together for the entire time,” Feser said. “Our team work on the court will be much better than it was in worlds. It’s all about learning how to play with each other again because we’re all over Canada. It’s really tough when you play with many different teams and then you come together for tournaments and that’s usually not enough time to know your teammates. We’re going to be more connected as a team for London and that will make us stronger than we were in worlds.”

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks