? Crowd give full backing to test event despite Team GB's defeat
? Olympic test event includes top-10 teams Australia and Croatia
Dan Clark, born just a few miles from the Olympic site in Stratford, east London, might in years to come find himself the subject of a Trivial Pursuit question. The power forward had the honour of scoring the first British point on the Olympic Park, from the free-throw line and shortly after the first test event began on Monday night.
Team GB went on to lose 82-60 to France, ranked No14 in the world to GB's 56, but they were not disgraced at the housewarming on the first day of the London International Basketball Invitational.
GB raced into a six-point lead but France had converted that to a narrow advantage by the end of the first quarter. The visitors then turned the screw after that as their extra class told, with Tony Parker excelling and top-scoring with 23 ? but Britain scrapped gamely, refusing to let their opponents pull away until limbs tired in the final quarter.
The British team, who play Croatia on Wednesday, were left looking forward to the arrival of Luol Deng, their Chicago Bulls star, later this week.
Invitations to the round robin, which continues until Sunday, have been handpicked to try to provide a stern test. All Team GB's opponents are ranked at least 37 places higher. Australia, who on Tuesday easily defeated China 71-43, and Serbia, who lost 83-71 to Croatia, reside in the top 10.
The GB players praised the venue even before the fans filed in and despite tickets being restricted to 2,600 of the 12,000 that will fill it next summer, the crowd periodically generated enough noise to suggest the atmosphere will be suitably raucous. Organisers will also have been cheered by the demographic spread. There were plenty of avid fans while many others flipped to page 18 of the programme ? "Basketball: how it works".
As is the case with the Olympic velodrome seats that unusually ring its entire track, and the steep raking stands of the Aquatics Centre, care has been taken to guarantee that one of the defining features of the London Games will be the ebullient atmosphere. If the basketball is any guide, ear-splitting music and rabble-rousing MCs will also feature.
Most fans seemed impressed with the action and the venues that have risen from the urban wasteland. Frank Zah, a 20-year-old student from London, is not a big basketball fan but he relished "the whole experience, the whole thing". He pronounced the arena "beautiful" and said of the Olympic Park: "It's incomplete but it's looking nice. When it's complete I can see it all looking sweet. This is just a little taster."
To fans, Basketball's �43m temporary arena is the very epitome of London 2012's pledge to leave no white elephants, but to establish a sustainable model for future Games. To its detractors, however, it is evidence of the waste inherent in hosting the self-styled "greatest show on earth". The venue will host only 11 days of the sport next summer, before the action transfers to the larger O2 arena and it becomes home to the handball finals. It will then be dismantled. The white structure, which will be bathed in dramatic lighting during the Games, has earned praise from the International Olympic Committee for showing that a temporary venue can be distinctive and reusable. Talks are under way to send it to Rio de Janerio for the next Games and the 12,000 seats will pop up at domestic sporting events for years to come.
Like every sport except football, each session of basketball at the Games is sold out and Team GB players hope that a successful Olympics can help ignite a passion for the sport that has refused to spark despite repeated attempts.
Drew Sullivan, the GB captain, is also insistent that a medal is not an unrealistic proposition next summer. The team have come a long way in the six years since the home nations put aside factional differences to prepare for their first Olympics since 1948. But their performance at EuroBasket, later this month in Lithuania, will be the barometer of progress.
If Sullivan's prediction is to come true in London this time next year, Team GB will need every benefit that home advantage can bring.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/aug/17/basketball-london-2012
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