Domingos passed his healthcare course too – and over the next few years, spent time in Spain with second-tier Basketmi Ferrol and top-flight Servigest Burgos, then followed his friend and mentor Bartolo to Portugal to join BC Gaia, all the while racking up international appearances for the country of his birth.<\/p>\n
“Spain’s the biggest league in the world,” Domingos said. “It’s the NBA of wheelchair basketball.<\/p>\n
“I played alongside two of the best players: Mateusz Filipski – he’s known as wheelchair basketball’s Steph Curry. He can shoot from everywhere. He’s a good leader, an amazing human. And I played alongside Lee Fryer, one of England’s most exciting emerging players.”<\/p>\n
But Domingos wanted to come back to England to study, starting a business management degree at the University of Huddersfield – he is set to graduate next summer.<\/p>\n
He kept up his fitness playing wheelchair basketball for a team in Wakefield, who shared training facilities with Wheelchair Championship rugby league side Castleford. A friend urged him to sign up with Cas – and everything has snowballed from there.<\/p>\n
In April, he scored the winning try as they beat North Wales Crusaders to win the Wheelchair Challenge Trophy, for second-tier clubs. In June, he was called into England’s 17-strong national performance squad.<\/p>\n
And then in August, he made the final 10 to fly to Australia – qualifying for the call-up on residency grounds. His domestic season was capped last month when Castleford beat Rochdale in the Wheelchair Championship Grand Final.<\/p>\n
“It feels amazing to be part of the Ashes,” he said. “England is a family. I feel privileged to be part of this.<\/p>\n
“I think my experiences with Portugal will help me to deal with the pressure. I can take some of the things I’ve learned in professional settings to this.<\/p>\n
“At the moment, I’m enjoying this. Everything happens for a reason and you know, if I try to understand the reason, it won’t be so. Whatever happens tomorrow, I’m not sure. I’m hoping it’s a good thing, but I’m living today.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Domingos passed his healthcare course too – and over the next few years, spent time in Spain with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-203615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}