Qatar Basketball Federation president Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani (third left) and FIBA advisory board chairman Yvan Mainini (third right) addressing a press conference on the eve of the FIBA 3x3 All Stars event yesterday.


By Sports Reporter/Doha


Al Gharafa Sports Complex, the new venue for the FIBA 3x3 All Stars, is all set to host the third edition of the season-ending event today.
For the first two years, the FIBA event was held at the Katara Cultural Village. But this time, the venue has been shifted to Gharafa Club on an experimental basis. If all goes well, this is likely to become a permanent home for the FIBA 3x3 World Tour.
“We feel the Al Gharafa Club may be a good choice for the FIBA All Stars in terms of facilities. We have the infrastructure required for the event here and we can accommodate large number of fans,” said the Qatar Basketball Federation president Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani while addressing a press conference, yesterday. “We’re staging the event here as an experiment. If all goes well and the FIBA is satisfied with the facilities, we’ll continue to have it in Gharafa or we’ll go back to Katara,” he said.
Also present on the occasion were FIBA Advisory Board Chairman Yvan Mainini, FIBA 3x3 Event Director Alex Sanchez-Mollinger, QBF Secretary-General Mohammed Ali Hobash al-Marri, defending champions Novi Sad Al Wahda’s skipper Dusan Domovic and Doha Team captain Yaseen Isamail Musa.
Sheikh Saoud also said a medical study, with the help of the FIBA and Aspetar, would be carried out to find the parameters needed for players of the shorter version of the game.
“We’ve involved the Aspetar and the FIBA and a report would be published on the findings of the study. This will benefit everybody, especially the players. The report will reveal the technical aspects of the game, the basic characteristics needed for the players and the best techniques to train. I’m confident that the scientific training methods will be very useful and will help the sport in further development,” he said.
Talking about the launch of the FIBA 3x3 Gala Awards, which was held in Doha last night, the QBF chief said, “We are honoured to host the first FIBA 3x3 Gala Awards dinner in Qatar. We are happy to honour all the people and organisations, who are contributing in development of the game.
“The 3x3 was played in the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore. It was a big success in the 2014 Youth Olympics in Nanjing. Now it will be hosted in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in Argentina. We’re quite optimistic that this will figure in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo as well,” he said. Former FIBA president and world 3x3 advisory panel head, Mainini, said, “Many people think that the 3x3 is not exciting, but the reality is different. We’ve been active for six years and the game is liked by everyone.
“I feel the 3x3 is more difficult than the 5x5, it is a high-standard event that can be organised in two-three days. It was played in two Youth Olympic Games. We can follow up the big success of the sport in the 2018 Youth Games in Buenos Aires and hopefully, it’ll be included in the 2020 Tokyo Games, as we’re dreaming.”
FIBA 3x3 Director Sanchez-Mollinger lauded the Qatar’s role in the promotion of the game. “Qatar has proved itself to be the leader not only in the GCC region, but also in Asia. Success is possible with efforts and planning and Qatar is exactly doing it.
“Recently, we were in Egypt and asked us as to how the sport can be developed there. I recommended them to follow Qatar map,” he said.