Fan Bin, the chief helmsman of the Chinese U18 team that recently won the gold medal at the 21st FIBA Asia U18 Championship termed the campaign as “one of the more difficult ones for the team. But we showed enough strength to win” on arrival at Beijing to a rousing reception.

“I am proud to be a part of a great team,” reacted China’s pillar of strength – literally – Wang Zhelin after helping his team take a stranglehold in the gold medal game on Friday.

Korean guard Giyun Kim scored a game-high 29 points in the gold medal and immediately reacted “I wish we had won,” exuding the spirit of team work that took the East Asian team to a seven-game winning streak in the competition.

Ten years ago, when Roman Huang made his maiden appearance as a coach in FIBA Asia competitions – as an assistant coach of the Chinese Taipei U18 team – the team went on to win the bronze ending a 11-year drought. And as things would have it took Huang’s return to the Taipei bench – this time as the chief helmsman – for the East Asian team to end another decade-long medal drought. Only this time the bronze has brought in an additional bonus in the form an entry to the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship.

In the alphabetical directory of FIBA Asia member federations Yemen comes at the end of the list. But in the last few weeks, the anomaly of the alphabet has changed. The name of Yemen has come to the forefront, with the Western-most nation in Asia hosting their maiden FIBA Asia event. All thanks to the determination and dynamism one man – Al Khader Al Kazani, the president Yemeni Basketball Federation – and his team of dedicated workers.