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<\/p>\nBASKETBALL Fiji 5\u00d75 captain Joshua Fox says the national team\u2019s historic success in Mongolia should be a turning point for greater investment in the sport.<\/p>\n
Fiji defeated Vietnam 69-57 in their final match at the FIBA Asia Cup Pre-Qualifiers 2029, creating history and delivering one of the biggest moments for the country\u2019s 5\u00d75 programme.<\/p>\n
While celebrating the achievement, Fox said the result also highlighted the potential of basketball in Fiji and the need for increased resources to support future development.<\/p>\n
Fox, who first represented Fiji in 2015 in Thailand, said he had witnessed the sport\u2019s progress firsthand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s come very far,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first games I ever played in was in 2015, so it\u2019s been a crazy journey to see how far we\u2019ve come and just seeing all the steps and how much better we\u2019ve gotten, and the younger talents that keep coming up, has been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said growing interest among local players and Fijians living overseas was another encouraging sign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s more interest from the local boys and boys from overseas as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always nice to see where we\u2019ve grown without some of the funding and resources that the rest of these countries have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox said he hoped Fiji\u2019s historic victory would encourage stakeholders to recognise the sport\u2019s potential and provide stronger support for players and national teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully now we can see that basketball can actually do something great and that we start putting resources into it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He described the current period as pivotal for Basketball Fiji and called for increased investment at both grassroots and national levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good future, but I think it\u2019s a pivotal time for us to start actually investing in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fox said he wanted more local competitions for young players, improved national team programmes, more international matches and better training camps.<\/p>\n
With junior tournaments, including an under-15 competition expected later this year, he said the foundations were already in place for growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we start investing in it, doing more local competitions for all the kids in Fiji and more things for the national teams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After making history in Mongolia, Fox said Basketball Fiji now had an opportunity to turn a landmark victory into sustained progress.<\/p>\n
Fiji\u2019s guard Tyrone Mclennan (with the ball) in action during their game against Mongolia in the FIBA Asia Cup 2029 Pre-Qualifiers in Mongolia last month. Picture: BASKETBALL FIJI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BASKETBALL Fiji 5\u00d75 captain Joshua Fox says the national team\u2019s historic success in Mongolia should be a turning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-886454","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\/886454","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=886454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}