All games in the Paralympic Games were going to be difficult for Algeria women as competed in their first ever games however their second was especially difficult against on of the favourites to win the Paralympic Games, The Netherlands.
For the Netherlands it was their opening match of the tournament and it allowed them to rotate all their players and give them all some valuable court time to get them settled into the tournament, all players recorded baskets to get on the scoresheet to help notch up a score of 107 points.
However, the game saw Algeria put up a great fight and improve on their performance against China yesterday, scoring 39 points in the second ever Paralympic match. Final score 107 -39 to The Netherlands.
Algeria’s captain Djamila Khemgani said, “It’s a great honour for me to play at a Paralympic Games, it is the first time for me to be in a place such as this and I feel so excited and so happy to be part of such a great event.”
The Netherlands Head Coach Gertjan van der Linden said, “Nobody knows anything about Algeria, so we didn’t know what to expect. It was just important for us to start the game and focus on what we talked about. So for us it’s a difficult game as we didn’t play man to man press, we stayed inside the key and waited for the fast breaks. However it was great that all the players played so they are into the tournament now, plus everybody scored so that was also good.
“I think Algeria also did a nice job and it was fun match to watch, the difference in standard is too much but it’s good that they are here.
“Tomorrow we play against France, so we build up tomorrow against France and then onto the USA. So now the focus is on France tomorrow.”
Full match statistics to be found here https://www.rio2016.com/en/paralympics/wheelchair-basketball-womens-group-b-preliminary-wb-5
