Olympic basketball qualifiers set

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain are amongst a now-confirmed 24-nation field that will be battling for just four available berths in the men’s basketball tournament at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

The nationals will be making their historic debut in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, scheduled to take place in July of next year, right before the Olympics.

The full list of competing countries, all juggernauts in global basketball, has been finalised following the completion of the just-concluded FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 on Sunday.

Bahrain are one of five senior men’s national teams who have booked their place through the continental pre-qualifiers.

The others are Cameroon, the Bahamas, Poland and Croatia. The rest of the teams set to compete in the Olympic qualifying tournaments are Egypt, Angola and Ivory Coast, representing FIBA Africa; Puerto Rico, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Mexico, representing FIBA Americas; Lebanon and the Philippines from FIBA Asia; Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, Montenegro, Greece, Georgia and Finland from FIBA Europe; and New Zealand from FIBA Oceania.

In the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, these national teams will be divided into four tournaments of six nations each.

Each event will be hosted by one of the participating federations. The winners of each tournament will qualify for the Paris Olympics.

There, they will join host nation France and the seven others who booked their places from the world cup, namely newly crowned world champions Germany, silver-medallists Serbia, bronze-medallists Canada, the US, Japan, Australia and South Sudan.

This forms the 12-nation line-up for the men’s basketball tournament at next year’s Paris Olympics.

The draw date for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments to determine the teams in each of the four events has yet to be announced.

Bahrain booked their berth for the first time ever in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments after an historic five-game sweep of the Asian pre-qualifiers, held in Damascus just last month.

There, they put in a dominant performance against Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, hosts Syria, Indonesia and India.

Asiad Bahrain are also set to compete in the Hangzhou Asian Games in China starting later this month.

The Bahrainis are to play in Group C of the preliminary round along with the Philippines, Jordan and Thailand.

Group A features Iran, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Group B consists of defending Asian Games champions China, Lebanon, Chinese Taipei and Mongolia.

Group D comprises Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Qatar.

The Bahrainis are scheduled to begin their campaign against the Philippines on 26 September at 8.30am, Bahrain time.

They then face off with Jordan on 28 September at 6am, Bahrain time; and then complete group play against Thailand on 30 September at 12.30pm, Bahrain time.

After a single round-robin, the top teams in each group will qualify directly for the quarter-finals on 4 October.

The second and third-ranked sides will play each other in a play-off round on 2 October for the right to determine the four other quarter-finalists.