By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
In a few hours we will know how the three final spots to Rio will be decided and here are the procedures for the Officials Draws of the 2016 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments for Men taking place at The House of Basketball, FIBA’s headquarters, on Tuesday 26 January.
2016 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs)
– The 18 teams that will participate in the three 2016 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs) have been classified into six pots on the basis of their quality and geographical principles.
– Qualification for the Olympic Basketball Tournament at Rio 2016 began at the 2015 continental championships. As such, the key criterion in determining the quality of teams at the OQTs has been their performances at their respective regional championship last year. When teams from different regions are mixed in a same pot, another factor taken into account is the relative strength of the continents, based on their results at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
– The aim of the draw is to have three tournaments containing groups of similar quality and with teams from the same continents equally distributed across the OQTs.
Pot 1: France, Serbia and GreecePot 2: Italy, Czech Republic and CanadaPot 3: Philippines, Iran and JapanPot 4: Angola, Tunisia and SenegalPot 5: Latvia, Croatia and TurkeyPot 6: Mexico, Puerto Rico and New Zealand
Here is a video explaining the draw procedure for the 2016 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs) in full.