The FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments are rapidly approaching, with the 2024 Paris Olympics starting July 26. Here is what you need to know about the qualifying tournaments.
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How Many Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTS) Are There and Where Are They Being Played?
There are four OQTs, three in Europe and one in the Americas. Greece, Latvia, Spain, and Puerto Rico will host the tournaments, which will kick off on July 2-7.
Which Countries are Competing?
There are 24 teams across all four OQTs. The OQTs consist of the top-ranked eligible teams from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, following the countries who qualified directly for the 2024 Olympics.
Those three countries are joined by the top 16 qualified teams from the 2023 FIBA World Cup, along with the five FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournaments (OPQT) winners. The countries competing are as follows.
Americas: Bahamas, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Puerto Rico
Asia-Oceania: Bahrain, Lebanon, New Zealand and the Philippines
Africa: Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Egypt
Europe: Croatia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Slovenia and Spain.
What is the format of the OQTs?
Each OQT has two groups of three teams. Each team in every group will play against each other in a single round-robin format.
The best two teams from each group will qualify for the final bracket. The first-place team in one group will play the second-place team from the other group in the semi-finals. The winners of those games will play each other in the finals to determine the winner of every OQT.
The four winners of the OQTs will punch their tickets to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
What are the Groups?
OQT GREECE
Group A: Croatia, New Zealand, Slovenia
Group B: Dominican Republic, Egypt, Greece
OQT SPAIN
Group A: Angola, Lebanon, Spain
Group B: Bahamas, Finland, Poland
OQT PUERTO RICO
Group A: Côte d’Ivoire, Lithuania, Mexico
Group B: Bahrain, Italy, Puerto Rico
OQT LATVIA
Group A: Georgia, Latvia, Philippines
Group B: Brazil, Cameroon, Montenegro
Notable NBA Players Competing in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments
Luka Doncic-Slovenia
Giannis Antetokounmpo-Greece
Domantas Sabonis-Lithuania
Pascal Siakam-Cameroon
Jose Alvarado-Mexico
Nikola Vucevic-Montenegro
Deandre Ayton-Bahamas
Eric Gordon-Bahamas
Buddy Hield-Bahamas
Santi Aldama-Spain
