The future of Bahrain women\u2019s 3×3 basketball looks bright from where Bayan Salman is standing. Fresh off the court following Bahrain\u2019s title victory at the Under-21 Gulf 3×3 Basketball Championships, in November, for which Bayan was named the tournament\u2019s most valuable player (MVP), she speaks about the potential to build a sustainable future for women\u2019s basketball in the Kingdom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the age of 20, her vision for Bahrain Basketball\u2019s future could be considered beyond her years. \u201cWe want to inspire and build the next generation,\u201d she says. \u201cWe really want to promote women\u2019s sport and basketball, and also to create more opportunities for women, which have definitely increased during the past year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born and raised in the UK, during her basketball education, Bayan consistently made the three-hour round trip from her childhood home to train with the Women\u2019s British Basketball League (WBBL) team Sevenoaks Suns. When she moved to Bahrain, her parent\u2019s country of birth, she was 16 \u2013 and, following a year out of the game, has since boosted her credentials on and off the court, which has helped ignite her passion for growing the sport domestically.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started playing basketball when I was eight or nine,\u201d Bayan continues. \u201cMy parents introduced me to many different sports: tennis, athletics, basketball, football, netball, cross-country. I continued basketball and tennis for a while and really enjoyed playing a team sport. When I started playing basketball regularly, I was scouted by Sevenoaks Suns and travelled 1.5 hours to practice and back, to gain some valuable experience and help push me on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bayan participated in her first tournament for Bahrain in 2022 at the Under-18 World Cup before making her senior debut at the GCC national-team regional championships a week later.\u201d I did not do very well in that tournament,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was my first senior appearance for Bahrain and my performance did affect me mentally. However, my coaches believed in me 100%, and when I started playing 3×3 more, and gained more experience, we went on to win the 2023\/24 NEOM 3×3 Women\u2019s Cup in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels amazing,\u201d she said of the Bahrain women\u2019s national team\u2019s successes in recent years. \u201cEveryone on the team works really hard. Seeing the results does mean a lot to us. We want to make history and put women\u2019s basketball Bahrain on the map and continue to increase participation and attendance in women\u2019s basketball. I\u2019ve just stayed persistent and kept showing up. I knew it was going to work out if I put the work in. I\u2019m still not where I want to be but I\u2019m enjoying my basketball. There\u2019s still more to come, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bayan has also thrown her support into international clinics for girls\u2019 basketball and providing education for future generations of players. In April\u202f2025, the Bahrain Basketball Association (BBA) was recognized via the FIBA Foundation Asian Youth Leadership Program, and in her capacity as a youth leader, Bayan expressed her eagerness to expand the program back home in Bahrain.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking ahead, I want to help put Bahrain on the map internationally and future generations of girls to take up basketball,\u201d Bayan expands. \u201cWe want to make a stamp for Bahrain and to set a benchmark. Across every generation, the higher you put the stamp, the higher the next generation will aim. I also like how basketball and the FIBA Foundation connects people off the court. I want people to have fun when they play. Being kind to each other is an important ingredient.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also co-led a Basketball For Good clinic in Malaysia during the 2025 FIBA Under-16 Women\u2019s Asia Cup, working with more than 32 young girls from Kuala Lumpur. The clinic combined basketball drills with life-skills education across healthy living, gender equality, and environmental awareness. The opportunity arose after Bayan and her teammate Aya Moamen won a pitch at the FIBA Foundation Youth Leadership Workshop in Singapore in 2024, which granted them the opportunity to run basketball clinics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing a lot of success from the efforts off the court,\u201d Bayan says. \u201cWe\u2019re focused on gender equality, health and wellbeing, and sustainability \u2013 three important areas for developing the women\u2019s game. It was really cool to connect with people from other countries during the clinic in Malaysia and to make an impact there. The girls left the clinic with more knowledge about gender equality and feeling more empowered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The future of Bahrain women\u2019s 3×3 basketball looks bright from where Bayan Salman is standing. Fresh off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-334415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}