Preston, Victoria, Australia —
On Saturday, Wikinews interviewed Tina McKenzie, a former member of the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team, known as the Gliders. McKenzie, a silver and bronze Paralympic medalist in wheelchair basketball, retired from the game after the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. Wikinews caught up with her in a cafe in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Preston. 
((Wikinews))  Who plays in that one?
((WN))  It's not the same.
((WN))  Was that the one where you were the captain of the team, in 2005? Or was that a later one?
((WN))  The Gliders have never won the World Championship.
((WN))  Unfortunately, they are talking about moving it so it will be on the year before the Paralympics.
((WN))  The competition from the [FIFA] World Cup and all.
((WN))  But anyway, it is on next year, in June. In Toronto, and they are playing at the Maple Leaf Gardens? 
((WN))  I don't know either!
((WN))  We'll find it. The team in Bangkok was pretty similar. There's two — yourself and Amanda Carter — who have retired. Katie Hill wasn't selected, but they had Kathleen O'Kelly-Kennedy back, so there was ten old players and only two new ones. 
((WN))  Caitlin de Wit.
((WN))  No, she's missed out again.
((WN))  That doesn't mean that she won't make the team... 
((WN))  You never know until they finally announce it.
((WN))  They said to me that they expected a couple of people to get sick in Bangkok. And they did. 
((WN))  They sort of budgeted for three players each from the men's and women's teams to be sick.
((WN))  Yeah. I sort of took to counting the Gliders like sheep so I knew "Okay, we've only go ten, so who's missing?" 
((WN))  She was sick the whole time. And Caitlin and Georgia were a bit off as well. 
((WN))  The change of diet affects some people.
((WN))  When was that?
((WN))  2007 or 2008?
((WN))  Yeah, well, the men are going to Seoul for their world championship, while the women go to Toronto. And of course the next Paralympics is in Rio.
((WN))  It will be a very different climate and very different food.
((WN))  One of the things that struck me about the Australian team — I hadn't seen the Gliders before London. It was an amazing experience seeing you guys come out on the court for the first time at the Marshmallow...
((WN))  It was probably all old hat to you guys. You'd been practicing for months. Certainly since Sydney in July.
((WN))  Especially that last night there at the North Greenwich Arena. There were thirteen thousand people there. They opened up some extra parts of the stadium. I could not even see the top rows. They were in darkness.
((WN))  When I saw you last you were in Sydney and you said you were moving down to Melbourne. Why was that?
((WN))  I know you lived here for a long time, but you moved up to Sydney. Did your teacher's degree up there. 
((WN))  And you like teaching?
((WN))  You retired just after the Paralympics.
((WN))  Your basketball career or your teaching career? 
((WN))  When did you join them for the first time?
((WN))  That would be good.
((WN))  Where are they all at?
((WN))  It's not really because...
((WN))  Yeah, they kept on pointing that out...
((WN))  Sounds like a basketball player already.
((WN))  Something I noticed in the crowd in London. People seemed to think that they were in the chair all the time and were surprised when most of the Rollers got up out of their chairs at the end of the game.
((WN))  Disability is a very complicated thing. 
((WN))  I was surprised myself at people who were always in a chair, but yet can wiggle their toes.  
((WN))  Also talking to the classifiers and they mentioned the people playing [wheelchair] basketball who have no disability at all but are important to the different teams, that carry their bags and stuff. 
((WN))  Getting women to play sport, whether disabled or not, is another story. And there seems to be a reluctance amongst women to participate in sports, particularly sports that they regard as being men's sports.
((WN))  They would much rather play a sport that is a women's sport. 
((WN))  Where is it?
((WN))  How does Victoria compare with New South Wales?
((WN))  At the moment you'll notice a large contingent of Gliders from Western Australia.
((WN))  The news recently has been Basketball Australia taking over the running of things. The Gliders now have a full time coach.
((WN))  I'm sure he is.
((WN))  Did you do some work with him?
((WN))  Watching the Gliders and the Rollers... with the Rollers, they can do it. With the Gliders... much more drama from the Gliders in London. For a time we didn't even know if they were going to make the finals. Lost that game against Canada.
((WN))  Apparently.
((WN))  You said you played over 100 [international] games. By our count there was 176 before you went to London, plus two games there makes 178 international caps. Which is more than some teams that you played against put together. 
((WN))  You need to prove it.
((WN))  Before every game in London there was an announcement that at the World Championships and the Paralympics "they have never won".
((WN))  You were in the final game in 2004.
((WN))  What was it like?
((WN))  The best team on the court on the day.     
((WN))  I'd like to see that happen. I'd really like to see them win. In Toronto, apparently, because the Canadian men are not in the thing, the Canadians are going to be focusing on their women's team. They apparently didn't take their best team and their men were knocked out by Columbia or Mexico or something like that.  
((WN))  And in the women's competition there's teams like Peru. But I remember in London that Gliders were wrong-footed by Brazil, a team that they had never faced before. Nearly lost that game.       
((WN))  They'll definitely be an interesting side when it comes to Rio.
((WN))  They're a tough team too.
((WN))  The Germans lost to the Americans in the final in Beijing.
((WN))  And between 2008 and 2012 all they talked about was the US, and a rematch against the US. But of course when it came to London, they didn't face the US at all, because you guys knocked the US out of the competition.
((WN))  You won by a point.
((WN))  It went down to a final shot. There was a chance that the Americans would win the thing with a shot after the siren. Well, a buzzer-beater. 
((WN))  Thankyou very much for this.

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Wikinews interviews Australian wheelchair basketball player Tina McKenzie