Pre-Olympic tournament hosts confirmed

Canada, Croatia, Lithuania and Serbia will host the four pre-Olympic competitions, FIBA has confirmed.

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Following the disappointing campaign at the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China, Greece will have to pass through a rigorous qualifying competition in order to play at the 2020 Olympic Games, which will be hosted by Japan next summer. The Episimi Agapimeni were knocked out in the second group stage of the World Cup.

Recently, FIBA confirmed that Canada, Croatia, Lithuania and Serbia will all host qualifying matches:

“The National Federations of Canada (Victoria), Croatia (Split), Lithuania (Kaunas) and Serbia (Belgrade) have been awarded the hosting rights of the four FIBA Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, from June 23 to 28, 2020.”

24 nations will compete in four qualifying tournaments of six teams each, with eight countries already guaranteed to play at the 2020 Olympic Games. The countries in question are Japan (hosts), Spain, Argentina, Australia, France, Iran, Nigeria and the USA.

All of these following 24 nations will play in the qualifying tournament:

Greece, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, Turkey, Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Angola, Senegal, Tunisia, China, South Korea, New Zealand.

The draw for the qualifying competition will be made on November 27 at the FIBA headquarters.

The Greeks are expected to be placed in Pot 1 for the draw as a result of sitting in seventh place of the FIBA World Ranking. Initially, the Hellenic Basketball Federation was preparing to make a bid to host one of the qualifying tournaments, but Eurohoops subsequently reported that financial issues prevented this from happening.

Each qualifying group winner - four in total - will play at the Olympics.

by Shaun Nicolaides

Image Source: pappaspost.com

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