The NBA and Basketball Australia (BA) have on Thursday announced the launch of the NBA Global Academy, an elite training centre at BAs Centre of Excellence at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.The centre will serve as a hub for top international prospects from around the world to train with NBA-level coaches, in elite sports facilities and play in elite competitions.This will be the NBAs fourth elite training centre with the organisation launching NBA Academies in Hangzhou, Jinan and Urumqi, China, with prospects from around the world expected to start enrolling in coming weeks.Basketball Australia is thrilled to partner with the NBA on the development of promising young talent from around the world, said Basketball Australia Chief Executive Officer Anthony Moore.Our Centre of Excellence has a wonderful track record of producing athletes who can compete on the world stage, and we welcome the opportunity to share our knowledge and experience with the NBA.Previously operated by the AIS, the Centre of Excellence has produced top-level players Lauren Jackson, Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills, Penny Taylor and Dante Exum.NBA Academies will include educational development for top international male and female prospects and mark the NBAs most significant investment in elite player development.NBA Global Academy will allow top prospects from around the world to train with and compete against their peers in a structured environment under the supervision of NBA-trained coaches and in collaboration with BAs internationally recognized coaches, said NBA Vice President, International Basketball Operations Brooks Meek.On behalf of the NBA, we look forward to working with Basketball Australia on this initiative and helping elite prospects reach their full potential.The Academies will focus on more than just on field success with BA announcing they would focus on a holistic approach to player development with the Academies focusing on education, leadership, character development and life skills, building off the initiatives of the NBAs already existing grassroots programs including Jr. NBA and NBA 3X, which engaged with more than 12 million youth during the 2015-16 season.Each centre will house under-16 and under-18 teams that will compete against top competition throughout the year, while top students will be given opportunities to be selected for international touring teams for tournaments and exhibition matches.Housed in Australias world-renowned AIS, the training centre will be central to world-class, elite high performance facilities and leading sports practitioners in the fields of sports science, sports medicine and coaching.The NBA also reportedly has plans to expand its Global Academy operations into Africa and India. 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Aaron Jones Super Bowl Jersey .Y. - Jerome Samson scored once in regulation and again in the shootout as the St. Prominent anti-doping campaigner Jared Tallent reckons the walks at the Rio Olympics will be the cleanest in decades.Tallent will arrive in Rio as the defending 50km champion, having belatedly been presented with the gold from the London Games a couple of months ago after Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin was disqualified for doping.With the exception of US-based long jumper Darya Klishina, the Russians have been barred from the track and field competition in Rio, a suspension which covers a host of walkers who have medalled in major events.Another prominent walking absentee is Italian Alex Schwazer, the 50km champ from the 2008 Beijing Games, who was banned for a second doping offence shortly after relegating Tallent to second spot at the race walking World Cup in Rome in May.A sore hamstring has prompted Tallent to withdraw from the 20km race in Rio and focus all his attention on his favoured 50km event on August 19, where he expects his most serious challengers to be world record holder Yohann Diniz from France and Slovakias Matej Toth.It is going to be the cleanest Olympics in a long time, probably going back decades because unfortunately the Russians were always suuspected of doping and have been doping and they have been there for a long time, the 31-year-old Tallent said on Friday.ddddddddddddThey have been the main culprits in our sport.It will be a good day for the event, for the athletes ... a lot of the top guys will think they have got a chance for a medal whereas in the past when you had the three Russians there you always thought it was going to be pretty tough to get a medal.Tallent said he was not overly surprised by the findings of the McLaren Report - commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency - which revealed widespread, state-sponsored doping in Russia of athletes in a host of Olympic sports.Having won silver in the 50km and bronze in the 20km eight years ago in Beijing and gold in the 50km at the 2012 London Games, Tallent will become the first Australian track and field athletes to medal in three separate Olympics if he can claim a podium finish in the longer event in Rio.I have won a medal at every major championships since 2010 so I want to keep that ball rolling, he said. 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