Boomers’ team manager Junior Viranatuleo ready for Paris Olympics
As Australia shoots for golden glory at the Olympic Games one mystery man has a big job.
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Patty Mills may be the Australian Boomers’ captain but the men’s national basketball team’s famed “Gold Vibes” start with a humble former Cape York truckie who’s quietly driven the squad’s culture from the sidelines across three decades.
Boomers team manager Junior Viranatuleo started the almost 11,000km journey from Cooktown to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday afternoon where the squad will play two exhibition games against the USA and Serbia.
The team departed Australia together on Wednesday night from Melbourne.
■ Everything you need to know about Opals, Boomers in Paris
The longest serving team member re-joined the group in Victoria late last month ahead of exhibition games against China with head coach Brian Goorjian whittling down a 17-man group to the final 12 that will play in the Paris Olympics later this month.
With the Boomers desperate to build on their breakthrough bronze medal in Tokyo, Viranatuleo said this year’s camp was by far the most intense that he’d been involved with since joining the program in 2008.
“I’ve been prepping all year, organising flights and accommodation and the lead-in to Abu Dhabi,” he said.
“There’s a lot of work happening behind the scenes.
“This Melbourne camp was the busiest one I’ve done. We had so much more happening, building relationships with sponsors, commitments and events for the players.”
The days were long, starting for Viranatuleo at 7am and finishing at midnight or later.
“The Opals, the Gliders and the Rollers (men’s and women’s wheelchair teams) were all in Melbourne at the same time,” he said.
“We all stayed at the same hotel and it was logistically pretty big for us.”
Portland Trailblazers’ guard Matisse Thybulle’s shock omission from the team reflected just how hungry players were to make the final cut for Paris, Viranatuleo said.
“The standard, the competition and the battles, they were going at it,” he said.
“They all wanted that ticket and it wasn’t easy to achieve.
“It felt like the country was surprised by some of the decisions made but that’s up to the coaches. We’re excited.”
This Olympics campaign is the latest chapter in a whirlwind journey for Viranatuleo, who started working as a team manager in the NBL.
When Covid delayed the start of the domestic competition in 2020, the Far North Queenslander took his talents to Cooktown, driving prime movers chock-full of groceries to remote Indigenous communities across the Cape.
But a call from close mate Mills begging him to return ahead of the Tokyo Games took him from Cape York to courtside for the team’s breakthrough bronze medal win at Saitama Super Arena in 2021.
Viranatuleo then worked for the Utah Jazz in the NBA before choosing to return home to Australia.
“We’re trying to create that elite environment and culture with the new squad that we have,” he said.
“Every tour we want to do better. It’s the attention to detail and the small things and making sure that they can play and coaches can coach.”
Viranatuleo has recently been working with the Cairns Marlins in the NBL1 competition.
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Originally published as Boomers’ team manager Junior Viranatuleo ready for Paris Olympics
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