Basketball has been hit hardest of all sports in Canberra during the Territory's latest COVID wave, but David Simpson expected the game would rebound strongly on the back of the Boomers' Tokyo bronze medal.
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The Basketball ACT chief has been working closely with ACT Health over the past month, to help trace the 51 positive COVID cases which stemmed from clusters at their Belconnen and Tuggeranong venues.
Both venues have also undergone deep cleaning in readiness for the resumption of local sport, which Simpson hoped would be in time to finish the winter competitions by November 26.
The ACT's lockdown came at the worst time for the sport, just as Canberra boy and NBA superstar Patty Mills led the Australian Boomers to an historic bronze medal at Tokyo.
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"We got a good influx of inquiries as soon as the Boomers won their bronze medal, the phone calls started the next day with kids wanting to come in and play basketball so that was pretty disappointing we weren't able to take full advantage of that," Simpson said.
"A lot of that enthusiasm and hype will likely have died down before we finally do get on the court. But Patty has been a great advocate for basketball - we will still see an upswing from it."
