By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
SHENZHEN – Argentina and the USA have received the two American tickets for the Olympic tournament in Tokyo next summer.
With Brazil out of the quarterfinals, there’s no chance for any other American team to finish in a better position from them. Nigeria has also qualified as the best African team of the World Cup, Iran as the best Asian team and Japan as the host country.
“Having qualified to the Olympics already is huge for us”, said coach Gregg Popovich, “with the situation in which we are right now and the qualifiers. Coach Jeff Van Gundy did an amazing job on that, but it’s not easy to do it every summer”.
Second Round participants Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, as well as the best teams from the Classification Round 17-32, Germany, New Zealand, Tunisia, Canada and Turkey kept their Olympic dreams alive with tickets to next summer’s FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.
Three more Olympic Qualifying Tournament vacancies will be filled by three of the current five Quarter-Finalists from Europe, who do not achieve direct qualification at the World Cup in China.
The lineup for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments will be completed by two additional teams per region for a total of 24 teams, who will compete in four tournaments of six teams each.
The two best-ranked teams per region (Africa, Americas, Asia-Oceania and Europe) who are not already qualified directly for Tokyo 2020 or for the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments will also be selected to play in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.
Photo credit: FIBA.Basketball