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SHE Balls Australia We are a community group that promotes and celebrates all women and girls in Basketball in Australia

MADRID 2026 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED The 2026 IWBF Women's Repechage took place in Madrid from 8–11 June. Eight nations. Fou...
13/06/2026

MADRID 2026 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The 2026 IWBF Women's Repechage took place in Madrid from 8–11 June. Eight nations. Four World Championship tickets. Winner-takes-all.

Australia were drawn into Group A alongside Colombia, Angola and Germany — a tough pool with a familiar foe in Germany, the same nation that beat the Gliders in pool play during that painful Osaka campaign two years earlier. Spain, Argentina, France and Thailand were drawn together in Group B.

By the end of competition on 11 June, the Gliders had done what they came to do. Australia is one of the four nations qualifying out of Madrid for the Ottawa 2026 IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships.

When the Official Draw was held later that same day in Ottawa, the Australian flag was sitting at the table.

THE SQUAD THAT GOT IT DONE
The Gliders named a full-strength roster for Madrid — and the timing of three particular returns made a massive difference.

Hannah Dodd came back to the group after a professional stint in Germany. A Paralympian, a former WNWBL MVP runner-up, and one of the most experienced players in Australian wheelchair basketball.

Isabel Martin returned from her college campaign at the University of Alabama. Another Paralympian, another player whose international experience matters in tournaments where every possession is a knife-edge.

Laura Davoli wrapped up her debut season at the University of Texas at Arlington and joined the team. Davoli was identified back in 2024 as one of the rising stars of the program, and her year in the US college system has only sharpened her tools.

Around them was Georgia Munro-Cook — WNWBL leading scorer, All Star 5 selection, Grand Final MVP, the woman who put up 15 points and 10 rebounds against Japan in that brutal Osaka final. Plus a core of athletes who have been grinding through the WNWBL season, training through summer camps, and building toward this exact moment: Maryanne Latu, Shelley Matheson, Katelin Gunn, Ebony Stevenson, Jess Cronje, Sarah King, Lauren Hardbottle, Lucinda Bueti, Sara Houston, Taishar Ovens, Victoria Simpson, Breanna Fisk, Georgie Gott.

WHAT OTTAWA MEANS
The Ottawa 2026 IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships will take place from 9–19 September 2026. Twelve women's teams from around the world. The pinnacle event in the global sport.

The Gliders have a proud World Championship history — three bronze medals across eight previous appearances. Australia has been a fixture at the top end of women's wheelchair basketball since the 1990s, with London 2012 silver still standing as the program's most recent Paralympic medal.

This World Championship campaign matters for more than just Ottawa. It is also the platform from which the Gliders launch their push toward the LA 2028 Paralympic cycle. Every camp, every game, every rep between now and September is preparation. Every game in Ottawa is a chance to remind the world that Australia is one of the great women's wheelchair basketball nations on Earth

30 POINTS. 39 REBOUNDS. ONE HISTORIC WIN. Meet Jas Funnell — The ACT Small Forward Rewriting Australian Basketball Histo...
12/06/2026

30 POINTS. 39 REBOUNDS. ONE HISTORIC WIN.
Meet Jas Funnell — The ACT Small Forward Rewriting Australian Basketball History.

When the ACT beat Victoria at the Ivor Burge National Championships in 2026 for the first time ever, it was Jas Funnell who had the game of her career, so far. Thirty points. Thirty-nine rebounds. In one game. Read that line again. That is not a typo. That is Jas Funnell.
Trailing by twenty three points in the final quarter the ACT women came roaring back to win 78–76, with Jas scoring the game-winning basket on an offensive rebound and put-back.

Jas Funnell plays small forward. She is tall, long-limbed and agile. She is an aggressive and prolific rebounder. She smoothly knocks down threes. She shoots accurately from anywhere inside the arc. She has one of the prettiest runner/floater games in Australian basketball at any level, and as if that wasn't enough, she creates scoring opportunities for herself with prolific offensive rebounding — the kind of relentless second-chance basketball that breaks defensive spirits one possession at a time.
She is, in every sense of the phrase, a complete player.

HOW IT STARTED
Jas was ten years old in 2016 when she first picked up a basketball through Aussie Hoops and at just 12 years of age, she was selected into the ACT adult state team to play at the 2019 Ivor Burge National Championships. At 12 years old she didn't just survive on that floor, she helped the ACT to a bronze medal at her first National Championships.

By 2020, Jas had earned her first invite to the Australian Pearls Camp the beginning of her involvement in the national pathway for the Pearls, Australia's representative team in inclusive international basketball. By 2022, she'd earned her first full Pearls selection, representing Australia at the Virtus Asia Oceania Games in Brisbane and bringing home a silver medal.

DOMINATION
Then came 2023. The Virtus Global Games in Vichy, France. Jas not only helped the Pearls to a bronze medal on the world stage — she was named to the All-Star 3 of the tournament. One of the three best players at a global world games event.
That selection remains, in her own words, one of the favourite moments of her career so far. Alongside the friendships, the medals, and the chance to travel internationally with the Pearls.
In 2025, Jas was awarded the Australian Sports Medal and full official national recognition of her contribution to Australian sport.

THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY REVOLUTION
Here's the part of the story that doesn't get told often enough.
Jas is part of a small group of ACT-based players who have transformed the ACT Ivor Burge state team into a genuine national force, after a period of time where the ACT struggled to be able to form a team for the National competition and ACT based players were forced to trial and play for NSW. The traditional powerhouses of Australian state basketball have always been the bigger states of Victoria and NSW so beating the always dominant Victoria, in particular, at Nationals had never been done by the ACT. Not ever in the history of the Ivor Burge tournament.

Until 2026. Until Jas's 30-point, 39-rebound monster of a performance. The ACT beat Victoria for the first time in history, and Jas was unstoppable from tip to final buzzer.
It wasn't a fluke either. The previous 2025 Ivor Burge National Championships, in the Semi-Final win against NSW that took the ACT all the way to a silver medal, Jas dropped 26 points and 38 rebounds. Two of the biggest individual performances in Ivor Burge National Championships history, both by the same ACT small forward, in back-to-back years.

The Pearls have just announced the national squad in preparation for the 2026 Virtus VIBF 3x3 World Cup and Jas and five of her ACT team mates will be fighting for national selection for the November World Cup to be held in Bangkok. There is a bid underfoot for inclusion into the Paralympics for 2032 so Jas may soon have the chance to add Olympian to her incredible playing resume.

LIBBY WOODS AM — One of Australian Basketball's Greatest Has Just Been Honoured at the Highest Level.Elizabeth "Libby" W...
10/06/2026

LIBBY WOODS AM — One of Australian Basketball's Greatest Has Just Been Honoured at the Highest Level.

Elizabeth "Libby" Woods has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2026 King's Birthday Honours — recognition of a lifetime spent quietly, brilliantly, behind the scenes of Australian and world basketball.

There are women in our sport who score the points. And there are women in our sport who make sure the points get counted, the games get played, and the people who need basketball most have somewhere to play it. Libby Woods is the second kind. She's also one of the most decorated members of that second kind that Australia has ever produced.

The Honour
On 8 June 2026, the King's Birthday Honours list was released. Libby's name was on it. Member of the Order of Australia. AM after her name forever.

This honour is given for distinguished service of a high degree to Australia.

The Career
Twelve years as Chair of WA Basketball.
Sixteen years leading the National Scorebench Committee, from 2010 to 2026.
More than two decades on the FIBA Technical Commission, a seat she has held since 2005 — shaping the rules, the standards and the integrity of the game at the international level for the best part of a generation.
Technical official at World Championships. At Olympic Games. At Paralympic Games. The big ones. The biggest ones. The moments where the world is watching and the people in the navy-and-grey on the bench cannot afford to miss a single thing.
Inducted into the Basketball WA Hall of Fame in 2021.

And now AM.

The Quiet Force Behind Wheelchair Basketball

The work Libby has done for wheelchair basketball is what makes this honour land differently. For decades, she has dedicated her life to advancing opportunities for people with disability through sport — making sure that the players who roll onto a court have every system, every standard and every official in place to do justice to their game.

It is not glamorous work, but ask any player, any club official across this country, and they will tell you: the sport in Australia is what it is today because of people like Libby Woods.

She is, right now, managing scorebench officials for Wheelchair Basketball Australia in Perth this season.

From All of Us

We owe Libby gratitude and today she gets the recognition she has always deserved. Member of the Order of Australia. AM.

Congratulations Libby from all of us at SHE Balls Australia, and from all who play, watch and love this sport.

You are one of the very best of us.

Photo Credit: Basketball WA.

Amy Atwell with the well deserved selection into the Team of the Tournament! FIBA 3x3 World Cup 2026
08/06/2026

Amy Atwell with the well deserved selection into the Team of the Tournament!
FIBA 3x3 World Cup 2026

Well deserved selection for Amy Atwell at the 3x3 World Cup
08/06/2026

Well deserved selection for Amy Atwell at the 3x3 World Cup

SILVER TO OUR GANGURRUS! 20-21 it came down to a single possession! You did us proud on the world stage. Our best finish...
07/06/2026

SILVER TO OUR GANGURRUS! 20-21 it came down to a single possession! You did us proud on the world stage. Our best finish ever.

SILVER MEDALLISTS. The Gangurrus Have Just Written Australian Basketball History.Six days in Warsaw. The defending world...
07/06/2026

SILVER MEDALLISTS. The Gangurrus Have Just Written Australian Basketball History.

Six days in Warsaw. The defending world champions taken down in the Semi-Final. And the best World Cup finish in Australian 3x3 history. The Gangurrus are silver medallists at the 2026 FIBA 3x3 World Cup

Amy Atwell. Marena Whittle. Hannah Hank. Emma Clarke. Silver!! World Cup silver.

- Beat Mongolia 21-15
- Lost to USA 21-18 (by three)
- Lost to Spain 20-18 (by two)
- Beat Hungary 21-18 (must-win)
- Beat China 21-11 (Play-In)
- Beat Ukraine 21-10 (Quarter-Final)
- Beat the Netherlands (Semi-Final, upset of the tournament)
- Lost to USA in the Gold Medal Final 20-21

This is Australia's third FIBA 3x3 World Cup medal — bronze in 2012 in Athens, bronze in 2023 in Vienna, and now silver in 2026 in Warsaw.

It's also a massive moment for the program heading into the LA28 Olympic cycle. The Gangurrus have just put the world on notice on the road to Los Angeles.

Six Asia Cup gold medals in the last decade. Three World Cup medals. An Olympic appearance in Paris. And now, on a cool Warsaw evening, the highest finish in Australian women's 3x3 history.
Take a bow, Gang Gang.

The green and gold has never looked better.
You did us proud.

Our Aussie Gangurrus are playing for GOLD
07/06/2026

Our Aussie Gangurrus are playing for GOLD

Australia vs USA - FOR GOLD
07/06/2026

Australia vs USA - FOR GOLD

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