THREE Bucks stars of the court are celebrating this week after their places at the Paralympic Games this summer were confirmed at the weekend.

Clare Strange of Wycombe and Louise Sugden of Flackwell Heath have both been named in the GB womens squad, and are tipped to be joint captains, while Wycombe’s Matt Sealy has been selected in the GB mens squad.

Strange said: “We’re a young, talented team working towards a massive goal.

“There’s only six players in our squad who have been to the Paralympics, there’s a couple of us who’ve been to three, so we’ve got some years under our belt too.

“But we’ll have at least six who’ve not been to a Paralympics before and they’re just so excited as we all are for it to be on home soil.

“We’re sharing our experiences with them so they know what to expect as we works towards competing in London.”

The squad announcements were made after the World Cup in Manchester at the weekend, where both GB teams left the Manchester Arena disappointed.

The men were beaten to gold in a tough final by America, but the women were even more disappointing after four defeats in four days.

They were beaten by the USA on the opening day before a heavy defeat to Australia and a ten-point defeat to Germany left them battling for bronze on Saturday.

But despite another loss at the hands of the Americans the hosts showed plenty of fight and Strange believes they are closing the gap.

She said: “We’re beating teams up a bit more than we have done in the past.

“That’s really positive and we’ll take a lot of lessons from this on our journey to London.

“Teams like Germany and the USA are aggressive with their chairs so we have to deny them getting what they want and physically match them.

“The more you moan at the ref the less they’re going to call for you because you’re just nagging and being pathetic.

“What’s acceptable is what the referee calls so we play to the whistle. In the past we’ve struggled with that – we used to be all ‘ref, ref, ref’ but you didn’t hear that from us here.

“We’re not complaining anymore, we’re giving as good as we get and that’s reflected in the fact teams aren’t having an easy ride against us.

“If you fall on the floor you get up and you get on with it and that’s another thing we can tick off en-route to London – we’re dealing with these things and I know teams are scared of us.

“The scorelines might not have reflected it but I think how we played reflects the progression we’re making and if we can keep that rate of change going, hey, three months is a long time.”

Sealy is also optimistic despite GB’s 61-57 defeat to USA.

The 29-year-old, right, said: “We just need to improve our shooting percentages and consistencies when we get down to the wire.

“When we get technical fouls and we’re given another opportunity straight after to get on offense, we just have to learn to nail those situations.

“But we always try and take positives from a win or a loss. I suppose one positive is that we know the USA are a beatable team.

“I don’t think there’s much in it, just a few errors and loose ends we need to tidy up and then we will be a great team.”

The BT Paralympic World Cup took place in Manchester from 22-26 May with elite international athletes competing in Athletics, Football 7-aside and Wheelchair Basketball.

Go to www.btparalympicworldcup.com for more information