(GAE). Thomas Boehme on Tuesday graced the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in Tokyo. On Thursday, RSV Lahn-Dill’s world-class wheelchair basketball player and his club colleague Christopher Huber, who wants to cut back on competitive play after Tokyo, are just starting to play.

The national team, as is well known, has been successfully coached since 2010 by Nikolai Zeltinger, who himself plays for RSV, served as head coach there for years and is partner and manager of the major club in Central Hesse, is caught. A “hammer group”.

As of 2 a.m. German time on Thursday, the “blast” against Paralympic winners USA is about to begin. There will definitely be a small reunion party before the top match. Along with Steve Serio and Michael Pay, the RSV crew meets two former longtime teammates, along with Brian Bell, also a current squad player of Rollis von Lahn and Dill.

This was followed by world champions Great Britain (Friday, at 7.45 a.m., all German time), World Cup third Australia (Saturday, 4 a.m.), Africa champions Algeria (Sunday, 7.45 a.m.) and other tough preliminary rounds against the World Cup. There are games. Iran (Monday, 4 Uhr), where current and former RSV players will also duel.

The electric bohme knows right away that these are all games that can stand a knife’s edge. For the 30-year-old, however, his own team is in an outside role. “We’re all looking forward to getting started. We want to play a good game and fight for 40 minutes. Then we’ll see what comes out,” said “Tommy” Boehme yesterday, looking at a tough start against the United States. Happened.

Their goal – and of course that of head coach Zeltinger – is to survive the preliminary rounds and advance to the quarter-finals. To do so, the German men, Jan Haller, Nico Dremüller and Joe Bestwick, along with three other ex-RSV chasing baskets, would have to pass at least two teams behind to qualify for the final eight.

In the women’s team Germany, Annabel Breuer and Katharina Weeks are the two top performers of RSV Lahn-Dill. It’s already the third Paralympics for defensive Breuer: the 2020 Games scholarship holder of the year in 2012 won gold with the team in London, silver in 2016 in Rio – and a medal should jump out to Tokyo as well. For Weiß, who has been a national team player since 2017 and switched to RSV a year ago, it will be the first Paralympics.

Like the men, the German women are challenged from the start: in Group A by coach Martin Otto’s army of Vice World Champions Great Britain (Friday, 1.30 p.m.), Canada (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Australia (Thursday, 2 p.m.) Will fight ) and host Japan (Sunday, 4 a.m.).

A balanced group in which German women have to finish in fourth place to reach the quarter-finals. In Group Two, a three-way contest is expected between the US, China and the Netherlands. National coach Otto knows his group is an exciting one with an open end. He asks to speed up from the beginning.