Olympics - Gangurrus

Hello this is Evie Candler from 6T,

This article is about the girls from the Australian 3x3 basketball team The Gangurrus (which means grey kangaroo in Aboriginal) who have recently qualified for the Olympics. My Mum, Jenni Candler, is the Physiotherapist for this team. I am so fortunate to have been able to spend a weekend with these people at the W Hotel and I got to meet the whole team, as well as interview them. Here are some little snippets of the interview:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/164uDJoubqksZ6Bzj-9vwCtCcS2nXD4M7

In the interview I learnt many things about these girls. You may have picked up on this from the little video, but the girls have this love for each other and the game they play - it's indescribable. The advice that they shared with me went along the lines of: if you love something don't let go; you will get cut from more teams than you make, but that is not an excuse to stop trying.  Think of yourself as a bowling pin - you get knocked down but get up again. So, don't give up, because if every time something bad happens  and you stop trying, you will never know what it is like to succeed. 

Now for a word from my Mum  - the most loved and most famous Olympic Physiotherapist there is:

Hi RNPS 

I am lucky enough to be heading the Paris 2024 Olympics as the team Physio for the Australian Women’s 3x3 Basketball team this week.  It would be fantastic to have the RNPS community get behind the team and get the kids excited about watching them play.  The word Gangurru is an aboriginal word for the Eastern Grey Kangaroo and was chosen as the Eastern grey Kangaroos are long, strong and will battle any outsider that tries to break up their mob!

Many of you may not have heard of or watched 3x3 basketball before so here is a bit of a run through.  3x3 first debuted at the Tokyo Olympics but this will be the first time an Australian team has qualified.  3x3 is played in the half court and games run for 10 minutes or until a team reaches 21 points.  There are 4 players on a team and they rotate continuously over the course of a game whenever there is a stop in play.  Shots are awarded as 1 and 2 pointers instead of the usual 2 and 3 pointers in 5x5 basketball.  There are 2 time-outs that occur at the first stop in play after the 7 minute mark and the 4 minute mark.  Each team can then call one other time out during the game and all time-outs go for 30 seconds.

The full rules can be found here:  https://fiba3x3.com/docs/FIBA-3x3-Basketball-Rules-Short.pdf

The Gangurrus have a great Instagram account so please follow what we are up to here.  https://www.instagram.com/aus_gangurrus/  Please tag us in any supporter posts with @aus_gangurrus

Evie was lucky enough to be interviewed for Anneli Maley’s “Under The Surface” podcast recently.  Follow the link to see part of this interview from Instagram last week https://www.instagram.com/p/C9JepLlPyUC/

This link will take you to our game schedule for Paris, remember Paris is 8 hours behind so you might need to set the alarm for a few of these matches!  https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/schedule/3x3-basketball

We look forward to seeing lots of support from back home as Gangurrus head off to bring home a medal!

#ganggang