Next weekend, 20 3×3 basketball teams from around the world will converge on the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH), Homestretch Avenue, Georgetown for the first International Basketball Federation (FIBA) 3×3 Quest competition in the English Caribbean region.
The One Guyana 3×3 Quest will offer teams an opportunity to secure a coveted spot in the FIBA 3×3 World Tour in Edmonton, Canada, alongside other attractive prizes.

Speaking on what to expect on April 5 and 6, Guyana Basketball Federation (GBF) Vice President Rawle Toney promised a mixture of basketball and entertainment.
Toney vowed, “Entertainment and basketball – 3×3 is entertainment and basketball, where the music never stops. So, you have 15 hours of basketball over two days. On the first day, we have a cultural event.”

He further explained, “So what you could expect is the world’s 3×3 players coming to Guyana to play. Just to put it into context, Puerto Rico is the number one team in the Caribbean and they’re the 14th-ranked team in the world. One of the most popular 3×3 teams and players in Team Lausanne will be here too. So, that alone should tell you the quality of players who will be competing. Every player ranked in the world would’ve played on the World Tour last year, but to get back to the World Tour they need to go back through the qualification process, and this is one of the steps they need to go through.”

Hosting the Quest is no easy task, but according to Toney, FIBA’s shared interest in having the event in the Caribbean has been helpful.

“The first is initiating that you want to host; the second thing is paying the CHF 5,000 hosting fee to FIBA, which the Government would’ve paid on our behalf. The prize money, which they would’ve put up as well too, almost US$10,000 in prizes, then they’re assisting in accommodation which is another $15,000 (USD),” the organiser revealed.

Toney went on to share, “So, we first had to write to FIBA signaling our intent to host, but one of the good things about this is when we signaled our intent to host, they decide now to collaborate on it with us because they always wanted something like this in the Region, but no one ever put their hand up to say ‘hey, we want to do it’.”

The organiser went on to share that the GBF’s commitment to hosting the competition is a result of President Dr. Irfaan Ali’s push to host more international sports events.
“There are some works on the parking lot and everything that the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport would undertake. If I might add, they’ve been very, very supportive from a Government perspective on this, because we were encouraged by His Excellency to bring events to Guyana that would help catapult sports tourism in a major way and help position Guyana as a sports hub in the Region. After all, in all the history of 3×3 basketball, there has been no other country within the Region to host this tournament or to put their hand up to host a Quest,” the GBF Vice President noted.

“Once you host a Quest, it means you work collaboratively with FIBA, follow their guidelines in terms of everything, the venues, the type of branding; they monitor it, they guide and then you execute.”

Aside from the golden opportunity of competing in the FIBA 3×3 World Tour, the teams are playing for a US$5,000 grand prize plus four round trip airlines to the 3×3 WT, while the second and third-place finishers will pocket US$2,000 and US$1,000 respectively.