International Basketball Tournament
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The International Basketball Tournament (IBT) is NATO’s premier sporting event, having been contested for over 40 years. NATO Nations are invited to bring their Combined Armed Forces Team (the best of the Army, Navy, Airforce) to compete in a week-long tournament. The 2007 Tournament took place here in SHAPE from 26 November to 1 December 2007, with 10 teams (Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Turkey, Latvia, UK, USA and Netherlands) competing for the Championship Trophy and, of course, the bragging rights for 12 months!
The Tournament opened with Belgium vs. Italy, a good game which showed a much stronger Belgian side than 2006; SHAPE Chief of Staff, General Lather (DEU Army) officially opened the Tournament at a particularly well attended Opening Ceremony which included the SHAPE High School Spartans and Lady Spartan players. As the week progressed it was clear to see which teams looked like they could compete for the Championship game: USA, Latvia, Lithuania and Greece all looked strong and the support they had from their SHAPE communities was outstanding! The Latvian and Lithuanian supporters tried their hardest to deafen everybody in the Gymnasium with their horns and bass drums, whilst the Greeks were happy shouting and chanting!
The atmosphere was great throughout the whole week, the crowds were huge, the games were exciting and we had the added bonus of having the SHAPE High School Cheerleaders warming up the crowd for what was to come later in the week.
Friday, 30 November. Play Offs. The Teams were tense and the crowds were excited, the games were all going the way of the formbook; however, the highlights were to be the evening games, USA v Lithuania and Greece v Latvia. Despite the USA fielding their strongest side for several years, Lithuania proved too strong, winning 70-67. Before the final game of the evening, the crowd were treated to the Seattle Sea Gals professional Cheerleading Troupe, who performed a 45-minute set, the crowd thoroughly enjoyed the show and stayed around for Greece v Latvia. Both crowds were huge and in fine voice, the drums and horns sounded round the whole of SHAPE as the game got underway. Both teams played well and were evenly matched until the 4th quarter, when Greece took charge, closing the game off 78-67, setting up a Greece v Lithuania Final.
The Finals Day was sponsored by the phone company IDT, who provided goodie bags and phone cards as give-aways, and also paid for yet more cheerleaders to perform. This time, a squad from the Netherlands cheered the games and entertained the crowds at half time. The third place play off, between Latvia and USA proved to be one game too many for the Latvians, the USA winning comfortably by 20 points. The final saw Greece and Lithuania play a nail-biting game, with the lead changing hands too many times to count during the game! In the end, a bit of ill discipline from the Lithuanians resulted in the Greeks taking the lead on free throws and managing to hold out until the final buzzer, winning by 4 points.
The Final was watched by a huge crowd, which included SHAPE Chief Of Staff General Lather, who closed the Tournament and presented competitors medals to all players and trophies to the Winners. During the closing Ceremony SHAPE’s very own Mr Steve Richardson (Deputy Chief Athletics and coach of the High School Basketball Team) was initiated into the IBT Hall Of Fame, for his services to the Tournament during the past 8 years.
The IBT is a fantastic tournament, which gets bigger every year, the players love the tournament and relish the chance to play in front of such large vocal crowds as SHAPE provides. No doubt IBT 2008 will be another great competition, so come along and get a piece of the action!
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