Ellan Fraser On Making Her Great Britain Women’s Senior Debut At This Summer’s World Championships.

By George Chapman

Worcester Wolves BWB Women’s Premier League players Ellan Fraser and Kayla Bell represented GB at this summer’s World championships in Dubai. With Kaylia Bell making her second successive World Championship appearance after the 2018 Worlds in Hamburg Germany.

Reflecting on the moment Ellen was called up to the senior squad she said” I didn’t expect it to happen, I was planning to go on holiday then I received a phone call from the coaches asking me if I’d like to go to Dubai, I’m glad I did because it was a great experience. I looked up to all of the girls in that team throughout my basketball career I would watch all of their games from the Paralympic Games.”

Ellan recalls scoring her first basket on the international stage” I remember getting on court feeling nervous then I got to my spot on court I shot it and it went in”.

Fraser continued” I think at the start I was just overwhelmed with how fast it was all going, my teammates helped me find ways to deal with it. The experienced players in the team helped me and the other younger players through the tournament.”

Ellan started her wheelchair basketball career with Warwickshire Bears WBC playing in the BWB National League and representing the West Midlands region at the National Junior Championships before joining the WPL with Worcester Wolves.

Talking about how the WPL has helped her development Ellan said ”At the start I joined it (the WPL) and I thought this is going to hard, it’s going to be tough, and then when I started I realised it was actually so much fun I enjoyed every single second of it, it pushed me to the limits and made me work hard which I really enjoyed”.

The WPL has provided women in the sport the opportunity to play against each other on a level playing field. In contrast to the national league where both male and female players play on the same team.

Fraser said” The WPL has helped me get into the GB pathway because it gave me lots of exposure as coaches could watch all the WPL games. I had one to one training once a week which helped me improve in the first season of the WPL”.

Another advantage of the league is that athletes can train daily which is difficult to do with National League teams who only train once or twice a week.

Fraser continued” we train at least four times a week and have two gym session a week plus any extra that we want to do”.

The Women’s Premier Leagues training structure means that when players get selected for the senior GB team the players know what to expect from a Senior Team training camp in terms of training and prehab work.

Ellan said” When you’re training everyday you have to learn how to recover properly and that gets you prepared for GB camps where you’re training twice a day every day.”

Alongside playing for Wolves Ellan studies Physiotherapy at the University of Worcester with lectures taking place four days a week Fraser said” Everyone is so supportive, if I miss lectures because of basketball the lecturer will send me slides of the lecture I’ve missed. I’m also learning lots of new things about how to warm up properly and how to cool down”.

Ellan will be back in action again next week as the GB Women Under 25’s take to the court in U25 World Championships in Thailand.

Previewing the tournament Fraser said” I think we can use our experience with the Senior Team to help the other younger players adapt to the environment of being in a different country. I think we just have to go to the tournament enjoy it.”

You can keep up to date with the Under 25’s progress by following the British Wheelchair Basketball website.

Find out more about where your local wheelchair basketball is by looking at the club finder on the British Wheelchair basketball website by clicking on the link below.

Link: https://britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/get-involved/play/club-finder/