New Zealand’s capital city is playing host this week to the WWR Paralympic Qualification Tournament 2024, where eight teams will compete for the remaining three spots at this years Paris Paralympics.
The eight teams are split into two pools. Pool A consists of Australia, Colombia, Germany and Switzerland. While Pool B has Canada, Brazil, Netherlands and hosts New Zealand.
Due to the layout of the tournament, the two teams that win the semi-finals, will qualify them their spot at the Paralympics, while the two losing teams will battle it out for the remaining spot in Paris held in August.
Australian and Canada come into this as strong favourites having both finished second in their respective Zonals, while the other six sides, especially the hosts, would love to cause an upset or two. This will make the five day of the tournament come alight.
The venue for this is the New Zealand Campus of Innovation and Sport, in Trentham, a suburb of Wellington 30 minutes north of the city. In a first for the sport, the court being used for the tournament is a basketball court being shipped from Christchurch and laid over an artificial turf.
Action starts Wednesday 20th March with Pool play continuing Thursday and Friday. Saturday sees cross-pool matches, with the final matches taking place on Sunday 24th March. The five days of competition for the Paralympic Qualification Tournament, is the same number of days that will be used for the Paris Paralympics later in the year.
You don’t want to miss the action. All games are being shown on YouTube through World Wheelchair Rugby’s channel. All NZ games are also being shown live and free to air through Sky Open (Prime). If you are in Wellington and wanting to watch the action live, there are door sales at the venue.
World Wheelchair Rugby’s Social Media pages will also have half-time and full-time updates of each game.
Countries already qualified for 2024 Paris Paralympics – France (Hosts), Great Britain, Denmark, USA and Japan.
