‘A journey bigger than basketball’: South Sudan dreams of Olympic glory | Global Development

A Cheers ring out as South Sudan take the lead for the first time against Great Britain just before half-time. Fans in black and white T-shirts stand, wave flags and dance in the stands of London’s Copper Box Arena.

Last Thursday’s basketball game was one of the last warm-up games that the South Sudanese team will play before beginning its quest for Olympic gold in Paris on Sunday.

South Sudan, ranked 33rd in the world, is one of two African countries to have qualified for the Olympics in basketball, the other being Nigeria in the women’s competition. It is a remarkable achievement for the world’s youngest country, which gained independence in 2011 after years of civil war and is still plagued by conflict, hunger and poverty.

Santina Deng, 63, who travelled from Birmingham to watch the match, stands and smiles. She came to the UK in 1985 because of the civil war in Sudan. “It’s a big deal that we’re going to the Olympics,” she says.

“It’s a morale booster. The country is still going through difficulties and it brings us together.”

The team, nicknamed the Bright Stars, was formed in 2011 but its rise to prominence on the world stage began in 2019 when former NBA All-Star Luol Deng, who represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics, became president of the South Sudan Basketball Federation.

Deng, who left Sudan with his family in 1990 at the age of five, grew up in Egypt and then London before moving to the United States to pursue a basketball career. He was instrumental in building the team, including persuading players and head coach Royal Ivey, a former American NBA player, to join the team.

South Sudan has one of the largest populations in the world, which is a huge advantage for basketball, Deng says. However, the country is under-resourced and has no indoor basketball courts. The team is made up of players who left the country as children or were born refugees.

Khaman Maluach, a 7-foot-2 (2.18-meter) 17-year-old whose family moved to Uganda from Sudan, first attended a basketball camp organized by Deng in the East African country when he was 13.

In April 2021, he received a full scholarship to join the NBA Academy Africa, an elite basketball training center in Senegal. In the fall, he will join Duke University in the United States and is expected to become a big star.

“The first time I came home (after a tournament), I saw a lot of people gathered in one place, the fans and people appreciating what we were doing, it was really inspiring,” Maluach said. “It pushed me to work hard so I could make my countrymen proud of my hometown.”

Deng added: “For all of us, it’s a journey that goes beyond basketball. When I was a young kid in the NBA, I knew that a lot of young South Sudanese and refugees around the world were following my story. Now, it’s even more incredible when we do it as a group.”

“What we are achieving for the African continent is a huge thing; sport can uplift and motivate an entire nation.”

The team’s path to qualifying for the Olympics has been fraught with challenges. In 2020, players tested positive for Covid-19 before one of the African qualifying tournaments, forcing them to withdraw. Algeria earned a spot in another tournament, when Algeria withdrew, and qualified for the World Cup. The team beat 11-time African champions Angola to become the lowest-ranked team to qualify for the Olympics since 2004.

“The response has been incredible,” Deng said. “Not just everyone in the country, but the whole continent – ​​all our diaspora and refugees have been motivated to see the positive direction.”

Back in London, Great Britain, who had not qualified for Paris, came back into the game. The match was played down to the last play, with South Sudan successfully defending the last British attack to win 84-81.

Chris Grant, chairman of the British Basketball Association, was at the game and described South Sudan’s trajectory as “astonishing” and one that could help transform the sport’s success in Africa.

He says: “I’m also interested in the shift of power off the court. Emerging countries and the infrastructure they build around the sport, how they change their governance and get involved, will be very welcome for world basketball because it fosters diversity in leadership, which must reflect diversity on the court.”

A few days later, South Sudan faced the United States, the reigning Olympic champions and 16-time gold medalists, who had to battle back from 16 points down to claim a dramatic 101-100 victory and avoid one of the biggest upsets in basketball history.

The teams will meet again on Wednesday in the Olympic group stage.

In an interview after the match, South Sudanese player Wenyen Gabriel, a former Los Angeles Lakers player, said: “A lot of people in the world don’t know what South Sudan is.

“We are a group of refugees who came together for a few weeks to do our best, playing against some of the best players of all time,” he said, adding: “Basketball in Africa is something for the future. It is only a matter of time before the next generation is formed.”