‘We’re going for gold in LA’ – Portsmouth’s wheelchair basketballer Jade Atkin after Paris Paralympics agony

Great Britain suffered a 59-52 defeat to the reigning bronze medallists to see them lose at the quarter-final stage of Paris 2024.

The wait goes on for a Paralympic medal for the women’s team. But Portsmouth’s Atkin, who is one of a promising young crop of players in the GB squad, is already looking forward to Los Angeles in four years time.

“I’ve had multiple injuries and I’ll say what I said then,” she declared. “My future for LA is to get to the point where we play these games and it is not even a close game.

“Where we play them and absolutely knock them out the park. This will be my motivation for that, to get better and be better in LA.

“We’re coming for that gold.”

GB’s women’s team failed to make the semi-finals at Tokyo 2020, having lost in the bronze medal match in Rio.

Atkin made an early impact against the USA, scoring the first points of the game, but the rebounds of Becca Murray and Ixhelt Gonzalez were a constant threat at both ends of the court.

With the half-time break closing in, the USA scored six straight points to hold a seven-point advantage after the second quarter.

The third quarter saw GB again pull themselves back into the contest, only for captain Murray to help stretch the lead out again for the US with two crucial rebounds.

ParalympicsGB were not done yet with Atkin’s return to the court signalling the beginning of a fight back to close the deficit to just three points with 10 minutes remaining.

GB took the lead for the first time since the beginning of the match and held a one-point lead as they forced the USA into a shot clock violation.

The two sides traded points and the lead as the clock ticked down before the USA showed their nous to eke out the narrow win.

Atkin, 22, is one of two Portsmouth players in the 11-strong women’s squad – former Castle View Academy (Paulsgrove) pupil Maddie Martin, 20, is the other.

For Atkin, the immediate aftermath did not allow her to take pride in her performance.

She added: “Right now, I don’t reflect on it. Right now, I’m just brutally sad to be honest.

“Maybe that is something where I’ll rewatch on the game, but right now I think I can just dwell in my misery.

“There are so many emotions that go through you in that game, and how lucky are we to play a sport that can cause such emotions?

“How lucky am I to have such passion? Obviously when you go out on court you don’t aim to be bad, you aim to be good.

“And when you are on court in that environment, you are all pumped and everyone has got the same feelings as you.”

*National Lottery players raise more than £30million a week for Good Causes, including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. To find out more, visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk