Course Leader in Sports Therapy Peter Thain comes away from the Commonwealth Games with gold and silver medals for his role court side as Team England’s Men’s and Women’s Basketball 3x3 team's Sports Therapist.
The men’s team beat Australia in overtime to take the gold medal and the Women’s team lost out to Canada, but proudly took home the silver medal.
The men’s and women’s teams trained at our City South Sports Hall and Doug Ellis Sports Centre last week in preparation for the gold medal matches.
This is Basketball 3×3’s first-ever appearance at the Commonwealth Games. The more familiar 5×5 version of the game has been contested twice at the Games, first in Melbourne in 2006, and at the Gold Coast, Australia, in 2018.
Peter was sat court side for the Basketball 3×3 in the heart of Birmingham City Centre at the Smithfield site.
Peter's journey to the Games
Peter is a Chartered Physiotherapist and was the Lead Therapist with the Great Britain Women’s Basketball Team. In this role, he has travelled the globe with experience at major tournaments such as EuroBasket 2019 and the Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2020.
It was this experience of working with the women’s team that led to his appointment for the Commonwealth Games. Equally, Peter was the Lead Therapist with the Men’s Basketball Team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast.
He said: “It’s an absolute honour and privilege to work with the national basketball team. These experiences are personal highlights for me but are also great as they allow me to share knowledge of managing injuries and working at a multi-sport Games with our BSc Sports Therapy students.
“The gold medal games for both the men and women were on a knife edge, and if you were to script a film for the men, you couldn’t write a better story. To beat Australia in overtime, with their shot for the win just falling off the rim, to then go to the local lad from Birmingham, Myles Hesson, to shoot the two points for gold – it was the stuff of dreams!
“The women unfortunately lost out to Canada by 0.3 seconds but claimed an incredible silver medal. These amazing people will go down in history — trailblazers of 3x3 basketball at the Commonwealth Games. They have inspired a nation and are true heroes!”