3×3 Basketball Games bronze medalist Debda: “If all goes well, we will become a top team in a year or two”

Semyon Debda, a two-time Russian 3×3 basketball champion, believes that the All-Russian Spartakiad bronze medal among the strongest athletes in 2022 is a good achievement for his young team. In a few years, the team from the Samara region can achieve high results. .

On Sunday, Debda, as part of the Samara region team, took third place in Spartakiad. In the match for bronze, Samartans defeated the Moscow region team with the score of 21:15.

Third place is good. Although we could probably count on more, we were lucky with rivals early on. I am very happy, we have a young team, we have just come together and are growing. If everything goes well, in a year or two we will become one of the best teams in Russia.

The turning point for us came in the semi-finals with the Perm region. We threw two points, in my opinion, 0 out of 12. As a result, we lost to an objectively weaker opponent. In the match for third place, we played with guys from the Moscow region – this is the base of the Russian national team, you always tune them in a special way,” Debda told .

— After losses in the semi-finals, it is often difficult to prepare for the match for 3rd place. Do you agree that the rivalry with Gagarin players added motivation?

– The main motivation for us was to prove that defeat in the semi-finals is not a model. It’s basketball, it’s a sport, anything can happen. We wanted to show our true level in the match for bronze. It was difficult to pull ourselves together after the semi-finals, but we are still professionals. Everyone tried to find mistakes in the game, they just said to themselves: “It’s also an experience, we have to learn from this defeat and move on, for the bronze.”

The Strongest Spartakiad started on August 10 and will end on October 2.