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On Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th of August, London’s gay and lesbian baskeball club, the Cruisers, will be hosting an international asketball tournament at the Score Sport Centre in Leyton (east London). The Cruisers teams will be competing against 10 other teams coming from countries as varied as Sweden, the Netherland, the USA, France, Russia, Nigeria and Germany.
The London Cruisers first got together as a women’s team to play in the Gay Games in Amsterdam, eigght years ago. Today London Cruisers Basketball Club comprises four teams, 2 women’s and 2 men’s team that have already found their way to the top of major gay sporting events. In 2006, at the Gay Games in Chicago, the men’s 35+ team won gold medals and the women came away with bronze medals in Group B, to add to their bronze medals that they picked up at the Gay Games in Sydney 2002.
Attendance to the competition is free for spectators and the event will be followed by an award party held at the Head and Tails bar in Clerkenwell on Sunday evening (£7 entry). Details of the tournament can be found here.
London Cruisers Basketball Club
The international sports event comes as it was revealed two months ago that Leftfooters FC (one of the London based football clubs) had won the bid to host the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association (“IGLFA”) World Championship in London in August 2008.