Home court, high hopes as Canada's men and women chase wheelchair basketball world gold

Canada's men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams hope home-court advantage can help end a lengthy world championship drought.

Canada will host the IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships for the first time since 2014, with all games being played in Ottawa. Action begins Wednesday, with the championship games Sept. 19.

This marks the first time Canada has hosted the men's and women's world championships together, with 17 countries represented by 15 men's teams and 12 women's teams.

Iran was scheduled to compete in the men's tournament but withdrew over the weekend because of visa issues affecting four team members, including the head coach and an assistant coach.

Iran was in Canada's group with Morocco and Germany, and its games will be recorded as forfeits with no changes to the schedule.

The Canadian women know firsthand what home-court advantage can mean. The last time the world championship was held in Canada, they captured gold in Toronto in 2014. The men, meanwhile, are chasing their first world title since 2006.

Both Canadian teams reached the quarterfinals at the last world championships in Dubai in 2023, with the women finishing fifth and the men sixth.

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For Arinn Young, the tournament is a full-circle moment.

With the world championships held every four years, opportunities to compete on home soil are rare. This will be the veteran's fourth worlds and her second in Canada.

The 30-year-old was part of Canada's gold-medal team in 2014 but played limited minutes as a rookie, jokingly describing herself as "more of a cheerleader."

"There are some people that have played 15 to