European Para Championships Preview - The beginning of something spectacular

Today, the inaugural European Para Championships will commence in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

This is hopefully going to be the start of a new prestigious tournament, where nations across Europe can put forward their best para athletes to compete for go, to put their names on the map of not only the world, but their own countries.

1,500 para athletes from 45 nations will take part in this first edition of the tournament, with 10 sports with their own respective classes with medals up for grabs.

More so, this will serve a direct connection to the Paris 2024 Paralympics as qualifying points will be up for grabs in Rotterdam, potentially giving unknown prospects the opportunity to represent their nations at the biggest games of them all.

Archery, badminton, boccia, cycling, goalball, judo, shooting, taekwondo, wheelchair basketball, and wheelchair tennis are the ten sports that will take place within the arenas of Rotterdam.

The organisers state on their website, europeanparachampionships.com, that they want to create 'a new standard for Paralympic sports events worldwide and to inspire people' from all backgrounds - they want to achieve through cooperation, making it accessible to everyone and with the tickets going for €7.50 (£6.70), the financial barrier is not particularly an issue at this point.

They look towards the legacy of the competition, where they hope that it will continue every four years and continue to develop and better the quality so that it is seen in the same light as the Paralympics.

Serving as a qualifier for the Paralympics is a huge step towards that direction.

The schedule for the championships can be seen via the image below, taken from the EPC's website - Boccia and Para Judo will kick off the tournament on the first day, with a gold medal event coming as soon as 8 August with the aforementioned Para Judo.

Two weeks of straight action and four of those will be the wheelchair basketball, where Terry Bywater will be representing Great Britain and hopefully lead them to gold.

He spoke to the EPC regarding the upcoming Championships and he said:

"For me it's all about the future and inspiring the younger players to come through and have a career in wheelchair basketball. We have a fantastic wheelchair basketball team, we are currently world champions and we have made the last five or six finals of a European competition. We are the team everyone wants to beat but I think we can go and win the gold."

Whilst the interview took place before the World Championships in Dubai where Great Britain lost in heart-breaking fashion to the USA 66-67, GB are still regarded as the favourites to take the Basketball gold due to their success in European competitions.

The CD Ilunion player will look to use his expansive experience to help guide GB to another gold and make up for their unfortunate loss in Dubai, and put them in a great position for next year in Paris.

Much like Bywater, there is great optimism for Great Britain given their admirable performance in the World Para Championships in Paris, last month, finishing fourth and highest out of all the European nations competing, which should make them automatic favourites to take the most gold medals, but don't write off Ukraine or Poland to compete given their performances in Paris.