Tuesday 18 September 2018 15:27, UK
Paralympic medallists, teams with lengthy unbeaten runs and the host nation - Britain's wheelchair basketball teams conquered them all at the World Championships in Hamburg.
The men returned home as gold medallists and newly-crowned world champions following a historic win over the USA, who had not been beaten in two years, while the women clocked up their best finish with a silver medal but also ended the trend of only USA, Canada and Germany contesting finals at the tournament which features the world's best basketball teams.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Gregg Warburton, who was named most valuable player of the tournament, said: "I don't think we made it easy on any of the hearts that were watching at home.
"But for both GB teams to reach a final is unheard of in our sport so a fantastic job from both teams."
Attention is now firmly on coming through a tough European cycle in order to qualify for Tokyo in two years' time, where, after their success in Germany, hopes are high for a GB gold rush.
A week on from returning home to a heroes' welcome, we spoke to the co-captain of the women's silver medal-winning squad, Helen Freeman, and two of the mighty gold medal-winning men's team Warburton and James McSorley to assess how the team became and can continue to be giant-killers on the world stage.
Freeman, who was an integral part of the team in their women's historic semi-final win over hosts Germany, said: "Our team is still so young."
And the women's co-captain, who was also named on the All-Star team, sees that as an advantage going into the European cycle of qualifying and potentially the next Paralympics.
"I think the average age is 22 or 23 so the guys that are 18 or 19 now are going to have learnt so much more and will be even better," she said.
"In Rio we had the heartbreak of losing the bronze game so I think to be able to get redemption from that and finally make it to a medal, and to beat Germany along the way, it will do a lot for everyone's confidence going forward because the women really broke down barriers and made history."
The final wasn't the first time the men's team had matched-up against USA during the World Championships and their battle in the earlier pool stages ended in a very different result.
The Brits were always nipping at the American's heels and while it was a defeat, they only lost by seven points, the narrowest of margins considering the US men dominated the game for so many years.
But after that match, the GB men reset, learnt from their pool match and went again in the final and it was third time lucky.
"I think to be honest playing them in the group stages actually helped us," Warburton said. "We took a lot of confidence from that match and made some subtle adjustments, especially defensively that in the end paid dividends."
Warburton's team-mate James McSorley added: "For us to be able to pick ourselves up after such a narrow loss in the groups and come back at them in the final with the right game plan, and the energy we had consistently for 40 minutes, to beat them by as many points as we did I don't think many people thought it could be done.
"But we knew we could do it and that was what was important."
All of the British team members ply their trade in the domestic leads at home and abroad.
McSorley is currently playing in the British league for Sheffield Steelers and said: "I moved over to England from Northern Ireland this year to train and be centralised with the GB team.
"I just get so much from it because the British league has developed so much."
Freeman, however, heads over to Spain to play in domestic league competition with Warburton making the move out there too this season.
"It just has so many benefits," she said. "The British league has come on a lot but getting the chance to compete against players from different countries, and having some players who do that regularly on the GB team when we play internationally, means we have a good balance and the best chance to be able to face them and win medals."
Both British teams are supported by UK Sport and National Lottery funding, something which Freeman, Warburton and McSorley all value as it helps them train and play the sport they love at the highest level.
"It just makes everything so much easier," Warburton said. "We have fantastic facilities at the English Institute of Sport (EIS) and we centralise for the summer and that was a massive part of our preparation going into the Worlds and will be going forward.
"And it's obviously working."
Winning a World Championship trophy is a huge achievement which requires a lot of hard work but the challenge of getting the men's champions trophy home needed just as much skill.
"Security loved it," Freeman joked. "They were trying to fit it through everywhere and it just wouldn't go."
But once they got it through airport security it was given a premium seat on the plane.
"It was sat on the same row as me and one of our team-mates," McSorley laughed. "It got the window seat and everything.
"To be fair though I would give up the window seat for it every day for the rest of my life if it meant taking one of these home every time."
