Mini basketball

Mini basketball is a ball game for children under 12 years of age.

American teacher Jay Archer in 1948 for the first time proposed lightweight rules of the game, which consisted in the fact that the height of the rings was reduced, and lightweight balls were used for the game. The rules of the game were also adjusted specifically for children. Rumor has it that this idea occurred to Jay Archer while watching one of the basketball games. During the viewing, he allegedly accidentally looked through binoculars from the back side, and saw small men who quickly moved around the site.

Almost 20 years later, in 1967, at the initiative of the leaders of world basketball, Frenchman Robert Busnel, Spaniard Anselmo Lopez and Englishman Williams Jones, mini basketball received official world recognition. This initiative came from high functionaries of the world basketball. Thanks to their efforts, an international mini–basketball Committee was organized in FIBA a year later, and it was later renamed FIBA mini basketball.

Starting in 1991, the mini basketball Committee began to regularly hold international competitions under the name “Jamboree". This name comes from a distant time when Indian tribes gathered together to demonstrate their skills, knowledge and success in the martial art. Taking the ancient Indian competition as a model, the FIBA mini basketball European Committee began to annually gather teams from various countries of the European continent for competitions. One of the main ideas of mini – basketball, which was proclaimed by FIBA – " the game of mini basketball is fun and fun, not a competition“" There were no losers in the Jamboree tournament. In 2002, the FIBA structure was reorganized. Representatives of Russia Boris Nikolaevich Ivanov and Sergey Yuryevich Fedorenkov, who worked in the mini basketball Committee, after the reorganization are part of one of the numerous commissions.

At the very beginning of the development of mini–basketball in Russia, only occasionally held competitions that only remotely resembled the game of mini basketball. However, it should be noted that quite a lot of such games were held in the Baltic republics. But then there were no uniform rules and official competitions were not held. Only in 1973, the USSR basketball Federation decided to create a mini basketball Committee. After the creation of the mini basketball Committee in the USSR, an active movement and organization of official competitions for the youngest basketball athletes began. The first all-Union mini - basketball festival is held in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) for the first time in the USSR.

But, unfortunately, such festivals were not held regularly. One of the most exciting festivals was held in the Uzbek city of Namangan, where teams from almost all the Union republics took part.

But, nevertheless, the Russian Council of DSO "Spartak" with enviable constancy holds large-scale festivals. The credit for this belongs to a member of the FIBA Central Bureau, Boris Nikolaevich Ivanov. Being an ideological organizer and inspirer of the creation of a children's mini basketball club under the USSR basketball Federation, which, thanks to the support of various public and state organizations and with the support of Republican sports federations, was able to raise this game to a fairly high level. So by the decision of the 1st all-Union conference, which was held in Podolsk on September 21, 1990, the all-Union club “Minibasket“was created. By the decision of the delegates of the Union republics, as well as the cities of Moscow and Leningrad, B. N. Ivanov was elected the first President of the club. At this conference, the representative from Belarus Tamara Sokolskaya presented a detailed program for teaching children to play basketball starting from the age of 5.

Club "Minibasket" after the collapse of the USSR, became a receiver and associate member of the Russian basketball Federation.

In the Moscow city of Lyubertsy in 1993, on the initiative of the club "Minibasket" held the first Cup of Russia in mini basketball. According to the results of this tournament, the best teams and players of the country were determined at the end of the year. Competitions of this kind allowed for selection to the Russian national team when moving from one age group to another. Thus, the coaches of the youth teams were given a lot of help in forming teams. Most of the best players of the Russian national basketball teams started their career in big basketball thanks to competitions held by the club “Minibasket". These are Alexander Miloserdov, Andrey Kirilenko, Maria Stepanova, Yulia Osprey, Anna Arkhipova, Irina pinaeva, Elena Karpova, Svetlana Abrosimova, Natalia Gavrilova, Ilona Karstin, Irina Sokolovskaya, Viktor keiru, Sergey Toporov and many others.

In addition to the mini basketball Cup, the Russian championship, international tournaments and street basketball Championships are also held in Russia.

Many mini basketball teams have become multiple winners and prize-winners of major international competitions organized by FIBA, as well as various national basketball organizations.