Paris (AFP)
French basketball players, Olympic vice-champions in 2012 in London and 4th in Rio in 2016, will play their Olympic qualification tournament (TQO) for Tokyo-2020 in Bourges from February 6th to 9th, the International Federation (Fiba) announced Friday.
Silver medalists at the last four European Championships (2013, 2015, 2017, 2019), the French will aim for a third consecutive participation in the Games.
The first six nations of the Euro-2019 basketball tournament (Spain, France, Serbia, Great Britain, Belgium and Sweden) validated their ticket for one of the four TQOs in early July.
To these six European teams will be added two African teams, four American teams (including the American, 2018 world champions), and four Asian / Oceanic teams (including Japan, the host country of the 2020 Olympics), at the end of Continental pre-TQO organized until Sunday.
These sixteen nations will be divided into four TQOs of four teams, with a total of twelve qualified (3 per TQO) for Tokyo-2020 (25 July-9 August).
France with Bourges, Serbia with Belgrade, Belgium with Ostend and China with Foshan, have been designated hosts of these TQO by Fiba, whose draw is scheduled for 27 November.
Among the men, eight countries are already qualified for Tokyo-2020: Japan as a host country, as well as Spain, France, Argentina, the United States, Iran, Australia and Nigeria via their ranking at the Mondial-2019.
The last four places will be awarded via four six-team TQOs played in Serbia (Belgrade), Canada (Victoria), Croatia (Split) and Lithuania (Kaunas) from 23 to 28 June 2020, four weeks before opening of the Games.
© 2019 AFP