MANILA, September 13 ------ It will be a daunting task for Gilas Pilipinas to achieve their dreams of qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. FIBA announced the 19 teams who will be joining the Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament winners Bahamas, Bahrain, Cameroon, Croatia, and Poland in next year’s OQT which is scheduled to be held on July 2 to 7, 2024.
Joining the Philippines, who finished at 24th place in the recently-concluded 2023 FIBA World, from Asia-Oceania are 23rd-placed Lebanon and 22nd-placed New Zealand. Meanwhile, top eight placers Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Italy will be joined by ninth-placed Spain, 11th-placed Montenegro, 15th-placed Greece, 16th-placed Georgia, and 21st-placed Finland to complete the cast from Europe. 12th-placed Puerto Rico, 13th-placed Brazil, 14th-placed Dominican Republic, and 25th-placed Mexico are the countries that will come from the Americas, while 20th-placed Egypt, 26th-placed Angola, and 27th-placed Côte d'Ivoire comprise Africa.
The tournament will see the 24 teams divided into four groups that are composed of six teams each, and only the best-ranked teams from each group after the games will be heading to Paris. Aside from hosts France, Australia, South Sudan, Japan, USA, Canada, Serbia, and Germany are already assured of a spot in the Paris Games after coming out as the best-ranked teams of their respective continents after the World Cup.
The hosts of the OQT have yet to be announced by FIBA.
Source: news.abs-cbn.com
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