Basketball stars fly through Zurich HB

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It is a special welcome that commuters and passers-by are offered on Friday evening in the hall of Zurich’s main station: the way to and from the trains once passes a basketball court.

The «3×3 Firstcaution Trophy» was held for the second time. Eight teams from the world’s elite dueled in 3 vs 3 basketball all day long.

There were several show blocks on the program between the matches. In addition to a dance group, a celebrity competition and a basketball acrobatics show, the dunk contest in particular caused enthusiasm among the spectators of HB.

Jordan-Reece George (23) and Vadim “Miller” Poddubchenko (30) dueled two of their guild’s best. They each showed five spectacular dunks (balls that are forcefully sunk into the basket from the air), and in the end the audience got to decide who won. The verdict eventually fell in favor of Ukrainian Poddubchenko.

300 jumps for the perfect dunk

In an interview with Blick, he then raved about the event at HB: “It’s great here. The audience was great, as always in Switzerland.”

The tall Ukrainian has been a professional dunker for eight years, before that he played normal basketball. It would only take him a few days to rehearse a new dunk. “It takes me about 300 jumps to master a dunk perfectly.”

The “perfect dunk” is one of the most difficult for him: “After a 360-degree spin, my perfect dunk is to pass the ball between both legs and hit the basket.” He showed it once in Germany four years ago and then immediately won the competition, he says with a laugh. Poddubchenko’s big dream is that professional dunking will be officially recognized as a sport, or even become an Olympic sport.

Marco Lehmann with Lausanne in the semifinals

In the 3-on-3 tournament, Marco Lehmann (29), one of Switzerland’s best basketball players, played with “Team Lausanne”. Lehmann, who normally plays for the Swiss first division club Swiss Central Basket, also praised the event: “I think it’s brilliant, the atmosphere is very good.” It was just a bit cold in the station concourse, the basketball player said.

Blick wants to know from Lehmann if he would have cut a good figure in the dunk contest. He would be too small for that at 1.87 meters, says the resident of Zurich: “No chance. I leave that to the big players with a lot of jumping power!”

Event should be even bigger

In the end, Lausanne was the last Swiss team to fail in the semi-finals (the U23 national team and Team Zurich were eliminated in the group stage). Team Amsterdam won the tournament and the accompanying prize money of 8,000 Swiss francs thanks to their victory in the final against Warsaw.

Zino Spinedi, manager of the event, draws a positive balance: “The atmosphere was great! The reactions from the spectators and our sponsors were always positive.” In the future, they want to make the 3 vs 3 mode even more popular in German-speaking Switzerland and make the Zurich event even bigger.

Source : Blick