The Official Draw for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games wheelchair basketball competition will take place on Wednesday 12th May 2021. The ceremony was due to be held in Tokyo, but due to the travel restrictions in place for the COVID-19 pandemic, it will now be held at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the birthplace of the Paralympic Games.
The draw will be conducted behind closed doors but will be streamed across IWBF’s digital channels on YouTube and Facebook at 12:30 (CET/GMT+1).
Twelve men's teams and ten women’s teams will compete at the postponed Paralympic Games between the 24 August - 5 September 2021.
The live stream will be presented by experienced sports broadcaster and British Olympian Jeannette Kwakye. Chair of IWBF’s Competition Commission, Charlie Bethel, will conduct the men’s and women’s draws and will be joined by Founding President of IWBF, Sir Philip Craven MBE, and the Japanese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, HAYASHI Hajime.
Joining virtually will be Head Coaches and Players from the Japanese men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams who will give their perspective on the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
The draw will decide the men’s and women’s groups for the preliminary stage at Tokyo 2020. A round robin in the preliminary stage will be followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals. To ensure a fair distribution of teams from the same zones, the draw is seeded and the teams are paired by Zone and their final placing in their qualification tournament.
Men’s Pairings
Pair 1: Algeria (Africa 1), Colombia (Americas 3)
Pair 2: USA (Americas 1), Canada (Americas 2)
Pair 3: Australia (Asia Oceania 1), Korea (Asia Oceania 2)
Pair 4: Great Britain (Europe 1), Spain (Europe 2)
Pair 5: Turkey (Europe 3), Germany (Europe 4)
Pair 6: Iran (Asia Oceania 3), Japan (Asia Oceania 4)
Women’s Pairings
Pair 1: Canada (Americas 1), USA (Americas 2)
Pair 2: China (Asia Oceania 1), Australia (Asia Oceania 2)
Pair 3: Netherlands (Europe 1), Great Britain (Europe 2)
Pair 4: Germany (Europe 3), Spain (Europe 4)
Pair 5: Algeria (Africa 1), Japan (Asia Oceania 3)
When the draw takes place, the pairs will be drawn in a random order, except for the pairing including the host, Japan, which will be the last pairing to be drawn. The team pulled out first will go into Group A, the second paired team will go into Group B, bar the pairing including Japan; as the hosts, they get the choice of which group they would like to be placed in, with the paired team (Iran in the men's and Algeria in the women's) being placed in the opposite group to Japan.
