Sports Extra
(Taken from the Februay 13, 2010 St. Albert Gazette)
    

Feser makes Canada

Tara Feser of St. Albert was named to the Canadian national women’s wheelchair basketball team for the third straight year.

Feser, 30, is one of eight returning players who competed at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games as Canada finished fifth overall.

The five-foot-11 post is a class 4.5, which means she has full mobility while sitting and can rotate and bend up and down as well as side to side. A classification system ranks wheelchair basketball players based on their functional trunk mobility.

A dislocating kneecap derailed Feser’s standup career in the sport. Even though surgery in 2004 fixed the problem it still prevented her from running or jumping. Her one leg is also shorter than the other by an inch and a half.

Feser’s international resume includes bronze at the 2009 Osaka Cup in Osaka, Japan, gold at the 2008 Good Luck Beijing International Invitational and fourth-place at the 2008 Osaka Cup.

Last year Feser won an NCAA championship with the University of Alabama Crimson Tide wheelchair basketball team. The lady hoopsters closed out the season with 27 wins in a row while going 34-2 overall. Both losses were to men’s college teams.

The recreational program manager for the City of Edmonton also plays club ball with the Edmonton Inferno, the six-time defending Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball league champions.

The first major international event in 2010 for Feser and Team Canada is the Osaka Cup, starting Tuesday.

Canada is also striving for its fifth straight Gold Cup world championship, an event held every four years. The 2010 worlds run from July 5 to 17 at Birmingham, England.
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