BUENOS AIRES (Argentina) – The second edition of the FIBA Americas Youth Development Program Elite Camp took place this weekend in the National High-Performance Sports Center (CENARD, for its Spanish acronym) and in Obras Sanitarias’ facilities in the city of Buenos Aires. It concluded with the selection of another five players that will now be a part of the FIBA Americas Elite Squad.

Argentines Tomás Allende, Federico Copes, Esteban Caffaro, Lucas Sigismonti and Uruguayan player Mateo Bianchi were chosen for the Elite Squad among the 24 participants born between 2002 and 2005 in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, in the Camp that took place from April 11 to 14 in the capital city of Buenos Aires.

The five players join Marcio Henrique Da Costa, Matheus Leoni Brito, Guilherme Carvalho, Daniel Ifedi Ferreira and Bruno Henrique Pedro, who were chosen for the FIBA Americas Elite Squad in the Campinas Camp that was celebrated from December 13 to 17.

The FIBA Americas Youth Development Program Elite Camp featured the Argentine national team staff led by Maximiliano Seigorman, as well as the Camp Director and Chilean national team Coach César Barría, and Uruguayan Coach Marcelo Capalbo. Also visiting the camp was current Argentine national team coach, Sergio Hernández, who dictated a special clinic for the attendees.

Argentina National Team Head Coach - Sergio Hernandez

“I'm very happy to have been chosen among the Top 5, but the most beautiful thing and what I take back home with me are the training sessions and my improvement as a player and person due to what I've been taught these days. I’ll always remember the technical aspects of the Camp. It was a great experience, we had a great time,” said Tomy Allende, from the province of Tucumán, Argentina.

Likewise, the Buenos Aires native Federico Copes stated: “I'm very grateful to FIBA and CABB for such a great opportunity. I would've never imagined being in a campus of this level. I move forward really wanting to continue with the progress in my foundations, my game, and as a person.”

YPD focuses on identifying, developing and promoting the best young athletes of the continent. FIBA's mission with this program is to offer players the necessary tools to make an impact in their national adult teams, focusing on developing the youth and basketball with a vision toward the future.

“I'm proud to have been a part of the Camp because we've been working for several years in developing the youth and having this take place in Argentina and that FIBA has called us —both the Argentine Confederation staff and other Argentine basketball trainers— it’s quite important. There were four aspects to consider when choosing the players: biotype, projection, talent and mentality. We considered these 4 aspects to be essential. Now the players must continue to evolve in their development as players,” stated Maximiliano Seigorman, Camp Director, to FIBA.basketball.

The referees and players lived four days full of athletic activities where they were a part of physical and anthropometric evaluations, fundamentals training, neurosciences aspects, development of individual and team abilities, talks about player-referee and trainer-player dynamics, and testimonies of Argentine basketball players about their careers and advice about their future development.

The Youth Elite Camp is organized within one of the key FIBA Americas pillars, the Youth Development Programme, which has the following objectives:

• Seek and develop the Elite Young Players in the Americas with a view to have these participants elevating the quality of their National Teams by the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 and the Paris Olympic Games 2024

• Establish a process for tracking and monitoring young talent in their Evolution and Progression in the Americas Region .

• Work hand in hand with Key Stakeholders and National Federations to identify the Talent.

The Program, which will be executed through individual camps and the development of young talent, is structured into three pillars: growing access of basketball to young athletes, giving more opportunities for them to develop their game and creating a platform for the elite youth players of the Americas. Its implementation phase will start with the children's’ Elite Camps in December of 2018 and during the whole 2019, with 2020 as the inaugural date for the Girls’ Elite Camp.

“What FIBA did was very good. They give us all the tools we need to be great players,” said Juan Contegrand, one of the Camp’s Argentines prospects.

“It was a unique sensation to be called for this campus where there were players not only from Argentina, but from other countries as well. That they considered me to watch me (play) gives me a great deal of happiness,” pointed out Fabio Gauto, another one of the participants.

Campinas hosted the first of several camps to be held in the Americas. Future FIBA Youth Elite Camps are scheduled for Central America and the Caribbean, culminating in a FIBA Americas Regional Camp and World Camp next year. Each camp will host players that will be chosen to be a part of the elite team, joining the first five from Campinas and Buenos Aires, to represent FIBA Americas in the exhibition games that will take place in key dates of the international basketball calendar.

FIBA