Beijing, May 5 (ZXS) -- The Chinese women's basketball team left Guangzhou for Spain in the early morning of May 22 to start European training in preparation for the Asian Cup.
The "Chinese basketball team" announced on the 22nd that in the next 23 days, the Chinese women's basketball team will play a number of warm-up games with Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and Serbia in Europe, and then arrived in Sydney, the venue of the Asian Cup, on June 6 for final preparations and warm-ups.
FIBA canceled the preliminary round of the Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament scheduled for November and merged it with the Asian Cup, which means that only the top four teams in the Asian Cup will be able to qualify for the Olympic women's basketball qualifying tournament. This change makes this Asian Cup very important for the participating teams, and the Chinese women's basketball team, which once intended to play as a second team, has also had to urgently recruit players who are playing overseas or being treated.
At present, the Chinese women's basketball team has several players who play for the Women's Basketball Professional League (WNBA). Chinese women's basketball coach Zheng Wei said a few days ago that considering the changes in the event, the Chinese women's basketball team has preliminary communication with the WNBA, and several overseas players have also actively cooperated, hoping that the Chinese women's basketball team can do its best to complete the preparations and tasks of the Asian Cup.
According to Zheng Wei, the Chinese women's basketball team began training in Guangdong on March 3 this year. At present, in addition to the players who are playing in the WNBA, Wang Siyu, Li Yueru and many other main players of last year's World Cup are still being treated or rehabilitated, and now only 30 people in the team participated in last year's World Cup, and 5 new players joined. The change of team personnel may bring difficulties to the Chinese women's basketball team in this Asian Cup.
The 2023 Women's Basketball Asian Cup will be held in Sydney, Australia, from June 6 to July 26. The Chinese women's basketball team is in Group A with South Korea, New Zealand and Lebanon, while hosts Australia, defending champions Japan, Chinese Taipei and the Philippines are in Group B. In the first five Asian Cups, Japan has won five consecutive championships, and the last time the Chinese women's basketball team won the Asian Cup (Asian Championship) was 7 years ago. (End)