Young and Dandeneau dazzle in 79-30 victory over Australia at the IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships

OTTAWA – In sports, there’ve been many great pairings: Gretzky-Kurri, Mahomes-Kelce, O’Neal-Bryant. In women’s wheelchair basketball, one of the best is Canada’s Kady Dandeneau and Arinn Young.

This dynamic duo put on quite a show Thursday afternoon at Carleton University, combining for 53 points in a 79-30 victory over Australia at the IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships.

With the victory, Canada improves to two wins and no losses while Australia drops to 0-2.

Dandeneau, from Pender Island, B.C., led the offensive charge with 33 points and 12 rebounds while Young, from Legal, Alta., added 20 points and 14 rebounds.

‘’We are very fortunate to have three of the top 10 players in the world with Arinn, Kady and Cindy Ouellet,’’ said Canada’s head coach Joey Johnson.  ‘’Offensively, Kady and Arinn, pick your poison. If you want to stop one, the other is going to go off.’’

Ouellet was a force at both ends of the court and added 16 points for Canada.

Young joined the national team in 2014 and was part of the Canadian women’s squad when it won its last world title and world medal that year in Toronto.

‘’We pretty much share one brain when we play,’’ said Young, a three-time Paralympian, about her connection with Dandeneau. ‘’We have a lot of communication on court, what we want to do, how we are feeling.  It’s really noticeable and people like to watch us play.’’

Dandeneau made her world championships debut in 2018 and has competed at the last two Paralympics. She was second in scoring at Paris 2024 while Young was fifth.

‘’I love playing with Arinn,’’ said Dandeneau, 36. ‘’She is a competitor, she is an animal on the floor and you know you’re always going to get her best.

‘’She’s also done a fantastic job being a leader this summer. She makes my life so much easier. She’ll headman the floor and I’ll just attack and do my thing.’’

Australia showed some fight early in the game, but by the half they were down 35-19 before being outscored 44-11 in the second half.

Dandeneau says there’s no offence without strong defence and that was the key to Thursday’s victory.

‘’When we play our game defensively, it’s a source of pride and that’s where we really excel,’’ she said. ‘’We came out stopping chairs high, which is something our coaching staff has been emphasizing this whole summer.’’

The Canadian women face their toughest test yet on Saturday against China at 3 p.m. (ET) at TD Place Arena. It’s a rematch of the bronze medal game at the 2024 Paralympics which the Chinese won 65-43.

The Canadian men, 1-0, are back in action Friday (12 p.m. at TD Place) against Germany, a rematch of the men’s bronze medal game at Paris 2024. The Germans won that game.