Commonwealth Games 2022: Wheelchair basketball ace James MacSorley relishing the chance to make history in Birmingham

Northern Ireland star James MacSorley is relishing the opportunity to make history as wheelchair basketball prepares to take centre stage this summer.

The sport makes its Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham and the exhilarating, fast-paced 3x3 format is set to draw big crowds to the Smithfield venue.

And having helped a Great Britain squad win gold at the 2018 World Championships, the opportunity to play a part with Team Northern Ireland is not one that has been lost on MacSorley, who plays his club basketball in Northern Spain at Bidaideak Bilbao BSR.

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He said: “I couldn’t be prouder. I was born in Belfast, I grew up in Belfast and then lived there until I was 22.

“I said when we qualified, there’s a really rich history for wheelchair basketball in Northern Ireland even though we’re quite a small place.

“There’s a great history of players who have come before us and we’re the next step in that, so I’m really proud to be a part of that and adding to that story.

“Then hopefully someone else comes in and adds on top of that and eventually, if we do something this summer, people might be like ‘do you remember those guys, when they went to the Commonwealths and did this, that and the other’.

“It’s a real privilege to be able to be a part of the Northern Ireland Basketball story and I think that’s something that we will realise with time – that no matter what happens after this, we were the first Northern Ireland team to ever make a wheelchair basketball Commonwealth Games and I think that’s really special.”

After the success of 3x3 basketball at the Olympics last summer, it has become a part of the wheelchair basketball game too, something MacSorley hopes can boost the game