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Team to play in Olympic Qualifying Tournament next summer
- Simba French
- 6 hrs ago
- 0
The path for The Bahamas to qualify for the Olympics in a team sport for the first time became clearer this week, as the senior men’s national basketball team was drawn to play in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Valencia, Spain, set for July 2-7, 2024.
The draw was held at the FIBA (International Basketball Federation) headquarters at the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland, on Monday.
The games schedule will be announced later.
There are 24 countries that will be playing in four Olympic qualifying tournaments. The other three locations will be Riga, Latvia; Piraeus, Greece; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Those 24 countries will be vying for one of the four spots available for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games. The spots will be given to the four OQT winners.
The FIBA World Rankings were last updated on September 30, and The Bahamas was dropped one spot to number 57. Spain is the highest ranked team in the tournament at number two. Poland and Finland are also in the top-20, listed at numbers 15 and 20, respectively. Lebanon is ranked at number 28 while Angola is ranked at number 34. As experienced from the FIBA Americas Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament, those rankings mean nothing for The Bahamas.
The Bahamas earned a spot in this tournament after winning the FIBA Americas Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, this past summer, knocking off host country Argentina twice.
At the time, Argentina was the number four ranked team in the world.
The Bahamas won all four of its games in that tournament, claiming the title with an 82-75 victory over the host in the final. The win not only kept Team Bahamas’ hopes alive for the Olympics, but eliminated Argentina from contention for the Olympics.
The team was arguably one of the best Bahamian basketball squads ever assembled as they obtained the services of National Basketball Association (NBA) players Chavano ‘Buddy’ Hield, DeAndre Ayton and Eric ‘EJ’ Gordon.