ARG - Vega proud of FIBA World Championship finish

BUENOS AIRES (FIBA World Championship for Women) - Argentina center Gisela Vega has expressed her pride at the ninth-placed finish clinched at the FIBA World Championship for Women.

Vega told Ole newspaper that Argentina went to Brazil with the intention to equal the 10th place achieved in 2002, despite being drawn in a group that she described as "very complicated".

But Argentina lost to the hosts by only two points and surprisingly defeated Spain. Then, the South Korea game was supposed to be the big test for Eduardo Pinto’s team and they won that too.

"Maturity, concentration and strength in defence were the things that surprised me the most - we were very united," Vega explained.

"If one rival was marking me, there were two team-mates to help me. Solidarity took us far in the championship."

Although ninth spot is an impressive finish for Argentina, Vega added: "We are a bit angry because we had the third best record (5-3), below Australia (9-0) and the United States (8-1)."

But she said: "We are proud, because we haven’t forgotten what we were looking for when we arrived.

"I’m more than happy because we were the surprise of the championship. Nobody had faith in us, nobody scouted us and in the middle of the tournaments, they ran out of videos of our play."

Vega was the World Championship’s best rebounder (averaging 9.1) and the eighth best scorer (averaging 16.8) but she does not consider these figures the most important thing.

"Individual performance comes second," she said.

"What I achieved in this World Championship is to help the team. If I did things well, it is because everything worked very well."

PA Sport