Ottawa will play host to the largest team parasport event in the world when the World Wheelchair Basketball Championships come to town in 2026.
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Ottawa will play host to the largest team parasport event in the world when the World Wheelchair Basketball Championships come to town in 2026.
The 11-day event will take place Sept. 9 to 19, bringing together 336 players from 28 teams, representing approximately 20 countries from around the world.
“We look at event hosting as an opportunity to grow the sport and bring awareness to wheelchair basketball, but also para-athletes and parasports,” Wendy Gittens, CEO of Wheelchair Basketball Canada, told OBJ Thursday.
The national organization has hosted a number of international wheelchair basketball events over the years, including junior world championships in 1997, 2011 and 2017, as well as the senior women’s championship in 2014.
But the upcoming championship will be the first time the full competition, including men’s and women’s junior and senior events, is hosted in Canada.
“All along we had been discussing the worlds, strategizing when to do it, how to do it, where to do it, all those sorts of things,” said Gittens.
Wheelchair Basketball Canada lost its initial bid for Ottawa to host in 2022 to Dubai, but found success when it decided to pitch the same proposal to the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) for 2026.
“We had built so much momentum through the community in Ottawa, through the various levels of government and other partners through the bid process,” she said. “After we lost, we were disappointed, but we just felt the support and didn’t want to lose the opportunity.”
Early studies from the initial pitch in 2019 projected that the local economic impact of the event would be in the range of $12.9 million. More than 640 people, including athletes, coaches, team staff and officials, will attend as participants and the event will require 500-600 volunteers.
Personnel will be staying at the Westin Ottawa, said Gittens.
“It’s the largest team parasport event in the world, larger than the Paralympics,” said Gittens. “It’s 16 men’s teams and 12 women’s for a total of 28. So it’s massive. And when you account for spectators, it’s a very large event.”
The event will be held at TD Place, with a second venue to be confirmed. The University of Ottawa and Carleton University will be offering their athletic centres as practice courts. A school program will reach more than 153,000 local students.
“We’re so excited to have this event in the community,” said Gittens. “The community engagement pieces that are huge for us really shine a light on the sport for the duration of the event and hopefully the community will support that and come out. We’re working with organizations across the country to really leverage this event. It isn’t just for Ottawa, it’s an event for all of Canada.”
The competition will be a test of the city’s accessibility, with more than 300 athletes who use wheelchairs.
“It’s an opportunity to have discussion with all levels of government but also other partners like the universities and venues and the hotel to look at the accessibility side of things,” said Gittens. “It’s a real opportunity for awareness. How accessible is our city of Ottawa, specifically for wheelchairs?”
According to Gittens, there are always challenges to ensuring that the athletes are able to move around freely. Transportation, for example, can be a barrier, since wheelchair-accessible buses are needed to ferry athletes between the hotel and the venues.
While a new arena is in the works for Lansdowne Park with higher accessibility standards than the current building, it won’t be built by 2026. That means work needs to be done to ensure TD Place is suitable to accommodate the event.
“It’s an older building and there are some accessibility challenges around it,” said Gittens. “But (Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group) has been fabulous to work with on our event, doing everything they can to ensure it meets our needs.”
