Basketball
In Latvia, basketball is the third most popular sport. Latvia has a long basketballing tradition. Latvia won the first European championship in 1935 and hosted the second championship in 1937.
In the Soviet period, the Latvian men's basketball team, ASK Rīga was dominant in the Soviet League in the 1950s and early 1960s, winning several Soviet league championships and three European Champion's Cups, in 1958, 1959 and 1960. In the 1960 Summer Olympics, four Latvians, Jānis Krūmiņš, Valdis Muižnieks, Cēzars Ozers and Maigonis Valdmanis were a part of the silver-medal winning Soviet team. The Soviet Olympic teams in 1956 and 1964 Summer Olympics had three Latvian players each. The Soviet team in 1952 Summer Olympics had one Latvian.
The women's team, TTT Riga was very successful in the 1970s and 1980s, winning the European Champion's Cup 18 times, more than any other team in any team sport. 2.12 m (7 ft) tall Uljana Semjonova was the women's key player in this period. She was also very dominant with the Soviet team in international games, never losing a game in international competitions and winning 2 Olympic and 3 World Championships.
For men's basketball, the guard Valdis Valters was the most highly acclaimed player of 1980s. He won a European Championship with the Soviet team in 1981 and was recognized as the most valuable player of the tournament, but did not get a chance to play in Olympics, because of the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles which coincided with Valter's best playing years. Another Latvian, Igors Miglinieks won gold with the Soviet team four years later, in the 1988 Summer Olympics.
Latvia returned to international competition as an independent country in 1992. The qualifiers of the 1992 Summer Olympics were the first tournament for Latvia's team. A major controversy was caused by two Latvian players, Igors Miglinieks and Gundars Vētra. They had a choice of either playing for the Unified Team which was certain to qualify for the Olympics or the Latvian national team which had a chance but was not certain to qualify. The two players chose to play for the Unified Team. The Latvian team, playing without them, failed to qualify for Olympics. This caused a great deal of resentment in Latvia and the two players never played for Latvia in an international game.
After the country regained independence, the most successful tournament for Latvia was the 2001 European Championships when the Latvian team finished in 8th place. The centre/power forward Kaspars Kambala was Latvia's best player in this tournament. Latvia's national championship, Latvijas Basketbola Līga, was dominated by Brocēni team in 1990s and Ventspils team in 2000s. In 2006, Ventspils team won its seventh consecutive championship.
Gundars Vētra became the first Latvian in the NBA when he briefly played for Minnesota Timberwolves for 13 games in 1993. Andris Biedriņš was drafted in the 2004 NBA Draft with the 11th pick by the Golden State Warriors and had already played three seasons, becoming the second Latvian to play in the NBA. He was the youngest player in the 2004-05 NBA season.
In EuroBasket Women 2007, the national women's basketball team reached the semi-finals, the best results of the first national basketball team since gaining independence from The Soviet Union, and faced Russia. Struggling with injuries, most notably key players Gunta Baško and Anete Jēkabsone-Žogota, Latvia eventually lost and reached 4th place, losing to Belarus.
Read more about this topic: Sport In Latvia
Famous quotes containing the word basketball:
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)