Drew Sullivan

Drew Sullivan was the Great Britain basketball captain during the Olympic Games in London in 2012 and is the only player that has reached the 100 caps mark. He now represents the Leicester Riders while playing domestically.

Born in London in February 1980, he competed over 100m and 200m in track and field athletics as a schoolboy in Haringey, but his favourite Olympic memory from childhood, watching the American ‘dream team’ in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, gave him the drive to be a basketball player.

He took up the sport at the age of 13 and, having played for London Towers at the age of 15, moved from his London home in 1996 to take up a place at the St Augustine College Preparatory School, in Richland, New Jersey.

He averaged 19.8 points per game as a senior there - scoring 1,368 points in his prep career overall – and was named in the first team all-state as well as voted South Jersey Player Of The Year in 1999, the year he won a scholarship. In 2006 Drew competed for England at The Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, where the team finished with bronze medals and he was named in the all-tournament team.

Drew left Newcastle at that point and spent a year in Spain playing for Joventut Badalona. After one season he switched to Belgian side Dexia Mons-Hainaut, coached by Chris Finch, the American former professional who went on to coach Great Britain at the London Olympics. The team reached the Belgian cup final.

Drew is well travelled having played across the United States as well as Europe. Professionally he has played in the Netherlands, Spain, Cyprus and Belgium whilst also visiting many different European countries because of the various club competitions that he has been involved with.

As an international, Drew is the only player to have featured every summer since the Great Britain programme began in 2006, having played in the first game against Finland in a friendly in Sweden. The Great Britain programme was revived after London won the right to host the Olympics, with the immediate aim of ensuring the host nation could put together a strong team for the 2012 Games.

He made a stand-out contribution in Great Britain’s promotion campaign from Division B in 2006-07, averaging 10.6 points per game. In 2008, the team then finished top of Division A to qualify for EuroBasket 2009, repeating the feat in 2011, and therefore leading to confirmation of their Olympic place at London 2012, where they beat China in their final group stage match.