Four days of basketball, three courts, a community tournament with over 100 teams gathered in the Sport Arena Streetball Tour finals, the first ever stop of the FIBA 3×3 World Tour professional circuit with 16 teams from 11 countries and a temporary five-star arena built at City Park Mall in Constanța. These were the main coordinates of a long weekend attended by more than 7000 spectators which concluded the series of 3×3 outdoor basketball events in Romania in 2023. Huge surprise at the first ever World Tour in Romania Hangzhou…
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First news about the 2023 Sport Arena Streetball season
The 2023 season of the 3×3 basketball circuit Sport Arena Streetball will start on the 12-14 weekend in May, with a tournament that will take place at the Poli Arena sports base, at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. The new season also comes with a number of changes both in terms of the prizes at stake and the registration and participation fees. Thus, for the first time in the history of Sport Arena Streetball, cash prizes will be awarded in several age categories, not only in the Men’s Open, and…
Read MoreSmoove: “I made my debut at the Harlem Globetrotters the day Kobe died”
It was 2003, in Slobozhanske, a small town in Ukraine, when Dmitry, a 13-year-old boy, first saw the famous Nike ad, “Freestyle”. “Wow, I must do this as well!”, he said back then. Five years later, in 2008, Smoove crossed the border with Romania to take part, as a freestyler, in what was to be his first international competition, Sport Arena Streetball. At the beginning of the same year, the Harlem Globetrotters made their debut in the United States. We’ve learnt the story of Dmitry Krivenko on Sport Arena Streetball…
Read MoreWith man down since the group stage, Riga Ghetto Basket scores a 3-men win at Bucharest Challenger and secures maiden World Tour Masters appearance
“We won the Bucharest Challenger and qualified for the Masters in Luasanne. We’re all in pain, but that’s what happened here. It’s a huge joy, you’ve seen the celebration. We also had chance on our side, it was fantastic” an ecstatic Agnis Cavars revealed, just seconds after the icon University Square in Bucharest witnessed four Latvians unleash. They screamed their hearts out, jumped like crazy and then collapsed on court, as if they were about to draw their pairs of wings, just like children do in the snow. Riga Ghetto…
Read MoreBig Bas’ squad beats the drum at Bucharest Challenger
The Netherlands will be represented for the first time at the 2016 edition of the Bucharest Challenger, just like Greece. Holland has barely finished celebrating the fantastic performance acquired by its own players at the mid- June 3×3 Basketball World Championship in France. Having never achieved significant results at any 5×5 basketball major tournaments, but with a keen desire to perform well in team-sports outside the football field, the Netherlands has crafted a national strategy. The Federation started to invest heavily in 2007 in several projects dedicated to children and…
Read MoreRomania’s Big 3. Bucharest Legends take on the world’s 3×3 giants
Those are players who have carried Romanian basketball on their shoulders for the last two decades, at the highest level, whether they were playing for the national team or at club level. Virgil Stănescu is the most iconic Romanian basketball player since 1989, having put together good seasons in the most powerful European championships and served as captain for the national team for almost two decades. Paul Helcioiu, winner of the FIBA Eurochallenge Cup back in 2005 with Asesoft Ploiești, was also a key-player for Romania’s national team. Mihai Paul…
Read MoreSent by the Gods of Athens: Don Poly makes its Challenger debut in Bucharest
Greece sends a team to Bucharest Challenger for the first time. From the City of Gods right to “Kilometer Zero” of the Romanian Capital, here come three Greeks and one Serbian guy! Petros Melissaratos, Nikos Tsiokos and Thanasis Chanias-Pantazis, ranked 5th, 6th and 7th among Greek 3×3 players, competed all four tournaments in 2017 alongside Serbia’s Alexander Stevovic, who’s got a 5×5 pro basketball contract in Greece. Don Poly arrives in Bucharest after a first World Tour appearance in Prague (12th place) and three podium finishes in as many tournaments…
Read MoreWinnipeg: the win-prone Canadians have experience on their side at the Bucharest Challenger
Winnipeg Acceleration Performance arrives at the Bucharest Challenger as a finalist of the national tour 3×3 Canada Quest and after having secured a World Tour showing in Saskatoon (12th place, in a contest won by Ljubljana). However, the team is slightly different from Saskatoon, with Darcy Coss (34) and Graham Bodnar (36) joining Wyatt Anders and O’Neal Gordon instead of Jelane Pryce and Matthew Koenig (an entertaining player to watch, enrolled in a special training program to improve detention and dunking skills). Interestingly enough, Bodnar and Coss were Wyatt Anders’s…
Read MoreBordeaux BALListik elite troops target Bucharest Challenger success
The sixth largest metropolitan area in France sends its BALListik elite troops to Bucharest Challenger. The mission: to make a name for Bordeaux – other than the home of fine wines. The four “Bordelais” come to Bucharest in an unusual formula: Eddy Steiner, the shortest of the French players, only 1.81 m, sets the traditional core with Charles Albert. The two made a first appearance on the FIBA World Tour last year in Debrecen with a 11th place finish and were forced to recruit two new teammates, as Alex Vialaret…
Read MoreGeorgia’s “Old School”: four Goliaths shadow rivals at Bucharest Challenger
Tbilisi sends its own “Old School” to Bucharest Challenger, to compete with Bogdan Sandu & Co, aka Romania’s “Old School”. Even though they have not played together all the time this season, the four basketball players coming to Bucharest via Istanbul have a fantastic record in the season: they have never failed to reach the semis in any of the tournaments they have signed in for and the team is now on a roll, with three consecutive wins – including the 2017 3×3 finale in Georgia. Richard Matiashvili has no…
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