Basketballer rolls away with gold

First year Bachelor of Commerce student Dylan Alcott had a busy month before starting studies in semester two. The wheelchair basketballer was representing Australia at the World Championships in Birmingham, England (7–17 July) where the Rollers won their second successive major championship gold medal.

A 1.0 classification wheelchair basketballer, Dylan Alcott is an incomplete paraplegic. A member of the Australian Rollers since 2007, he was also named in the FIBA World Championship’s All-Star Starting Five at the recent World Championships – an honour that now sits high on his list of greatest sporting achievements.

“The All-Star selection is certainly my greatest individual honour, but being part of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics gold medal-winning team remains my most memorable sporting achievement,” Mr Alcott says.

“And this gold medal from Birmingham is a very close second.”

Playing against the best wheelchair basketball nations in the world in Birmingham, the Australian Rollers were undefeated throughout the tournament.

They accounted for France, Turkey, Algeria, Mexico and Canada in the preliminary pool games. Finishing on top of their pool, they then overpowered Poland 68–34 in the quarter-final before taking on defending champions USA in the semi-final where the Australians triumphed 68–58.

The semi-final victory set up a gold medal showdown with Championship surprise packet France, whom the Rollers had defeated in their very first game of the tournament 79–69. The Australian women’s team, the Gliders, finished fourth at the Championships.

After doing his VCE at Brighton Grammar, Mr. Alcott travelled to the US where he began studying at the University of Illinois on a full sports scholarship. He led the team to the 2010 NCAA National Wheelchair Basketball Championships. While appreciating the opportunity to study and play basketball in the US, he is extremely excited to be back in Australia and studying at the University of Melbourne.

“While it was great to be playing in the NCAA, I was always going to be returning to Australia to study and I’m stoked to be enrolled in Commerce here at Melbourne Uni”, he says.

“I’m hoping to make the Australian Paralympics team again for London 2012 and one of the reasons I wanted to study at Melbourne was because of the support I know the Faculty (of Business and Economics) and University do provide to their elite student-athletes. The gym’s awesome and I’m definitely going to try and improve my strength and fitness in the lead up to 2012.

“I’m really looking forward to combining my studies and basketball, and hopefully bringing back another gold from London.”

Mr Alcott is also a Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship recipient athlete.

Will he win another Paralympics gold medal in London in 2012? Only time will tell, but you can be sure he’ll be doing everything he can both on and off the court to roll away with a third gold medal. And for the next couple of weeks, a gold medal performance in his exams will be his priority.