Beijing, May 5 (ZXS) -- The 30 FIBA Three-a-side Basketball World Cup kicks off in Vienna, Austria on the 2023th, and the Chinese three-man women's basketball team will compete for medals again, laying the foundation for "direct access to Paris".
The Three-a-Side Basketball World Cup was held from May 5 to June 30, with 6 teams each competing in the men's and women's categories. Due to the lack of top three in the qualifiers, the Chinese three-man men's basketball team unfortunately did not qualify for this World Cup. The Chinese three-man women's basketball team was shortlisted as a seeded team, which is also the first major international event faced by the "national brand" team in the Chinese basketball world this year.
In the first two World Cups and the Tokyo Olympics, the Chinese women's basketball team has medals. Among them, in the 2019 World Cup, the Chinese three-man women's basketball team won the championship in one fell swoop, winning the first world championship in the history of Chinese basketball.
In this World Cup, the Chinese three-man women's basketball team is in Group D with Lithuania, Italy, Romania and Israel, and its first match will be played on the afternoon of May 5, Beijing time, against Israel, which is relatively weak in the group. On the evening of the 31st Beijing time, the Chinese three-man women's basketball team will welcome the fierce rival Lithuania team in the group stage; On the afternoon and evening of June 31, China will play Romania and Italy respectively.
According to the rules of the tournament, the first place in each of the four groups of men and women in this World Cup will directly advance to the quarterfinals, and the second and third places in each group will play cross-matches to compete for the other four quarter-final places.
According to information previously released by FIBA, the Chinese three-man women's basketball team sent Wang Lili, Zhang Zhiting, Wan Jiyuan and Zhang Yi 4 people to participate this time. Among them, Wang Lili, Zhang Zhiting and Wan Jiyuan are veterans of China's three-man women's basketball team, all of whom participated in the Tokyo Olympics and last year's World Cup. In the opening leg of the 2023 FIBA Women's Basketball Series, which ended in Wuhan, Hubei Province in early May, the Chinese team, which played with the same lineup, won the championship.
This World Cup is an important event in the Paris Olympic points cycle, and the top 3 teams in the men's and women's categories will advance to the Olympic qualifiers. According to the Paris Olympic Three-man Basketball Qualification Method, until November 11 this year, the top three teams in the world in terms of points can directly obtain Olympic tickets (the remaining Olympic seats will be determined through the qualification round). Therefore, in this World Cup, the Chinese three-man women's basketball team will go all out to compete for medals and even gold medals to rank in the top three of the standings and qualify for the Paris Olympics.
The FIBA Three-a-Side Basketball World Cup began in 2012 and is now in its eighth edition. In the first seven editions of the tournament, the men's category, except for Qatar and the United States, which won the second and sixth championships respectively, was won by Serbia in the other five editions. In the women's category, the United States won the first two gold medals, while the Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, China and France won the third to seventh championships. (End)