The big time is… now for her Hellas. The National Basketball Team enters the battle of the SEF Pre-Olympic Tournament (July 2-7), aiming to secure a ticket to the Paris Olympic Games (July 27-August 10).
The “blue and white”, with an excellent roster and coach now Vasilis Spanoulisis preparing to challenge for Olympiad qualification for the first time since the long distance 2008, having all the resources to succeed. sport-fm.gr presents everything you need to know about the Pre-Olympic tournament.
What is the Pre-Olympic tournament?
In the Olympic Games of Paris, they will participate 12 national teams. The 8 have already secured their direct qualification, through it World basketball which took place in 2023 (France, Serbia, USA, Canada, Germany, South Sudan, Australia, Japan). The remaining 4 places will be filled by the 4 different Pre-Olympic tournaments, which will take place in Piraeus (Greece), Valencia (Spain), Riga (Latvia) and San Juan (Puerto Rico). The winner of each of these tournaments will earn a spot in the Olympic Games groups.
Regarding the format of the Pre-Olympics, each of them consists of two groups of three teams. The first two of each group advance to semi-finals and cross each other (first of one to second of the other), and the winners go to the final where the ticket for Olympic Games.
In summary the groups of the four tournaments:
Spain – Valencia
Group A: Lebanon, Spain, Angola
Group B: Finland, Poland, Bahamas
Latvia – Riga
Group A: Georgia, Latvia, Philippines
Group B: Brazil, Montenegro, Cameroon
Greece – Piraeus
Group A: Slovenia, New Zealand, Croatia
Group B: Greece, Dominican Republic, Egypt
Puerto Rico – San Juan
Group A: Mexico, Lithuania, Ivory Coast
Group B: Italy, Puerto Rico, Bahrain
The mission of Greece
And now we move on to National team of Greece. The “blue and white” will claim the ticket to the Olympiad from Pre-Olympic tournament which she herself organizes in SEF, wanting to… break the curse, as she counts only 1/12 qualifiers through this process. The only time he succeeded, of course, was the 2008when again she had organized the tournament herself in Athenawhich is a positive “omen”.
Greece’s initial opponents in the group will be Dominican Republic and the Egypt, two teams that are in no way “scary” and are passable for our National team. Crossings with the other group, however, in the knockout stages, are very demanding, as possible opponents are Croatia of Mario Hezonia, Dario Saric, Ivica Zubacbut also the great Slovenia Luka Doncic. Greece will probably need to beat both of these teams to go to Paris.
As far as Greece’s roster is concerned, Vassilis Spanoulis has a very good material to manage. The 14 players left in the draft, with two more to be cut, are as follows: Walkup, Larentzakis, Moraitis, Toliopoulos, Kalathis, Kalaitzakis, Papagiannis, Charalambopoulos, Papanikolaou, G. Antetokounmpo, K. Antetokounmpo, Mitoglou, Lountzis and Hougaz.
Already, the first samples of the team through the friendlies have been very positive. Greece defeated Poland 78-73 in its most modest appearance, but destroyed Montenegro 86-57 and then “swept” the Bahamas 102-75, in the first participation of Giannis Antetokounmpo, who showed himself completely ready despite his long absence.
We remind you that the injured will not be able to compete with the blue and white Kostas Sloukas, Thanasis AntetokounmpoThe Ioannis Papapetrou who will need rehab due to a knee surgery he had earlier in the season, but also o Nikos Rogavopoulos who put himself out due to physical fatigue.
It is worth noting that all the matches of the tournament will be broadcast by ERT. As for the tickets, they are already on sale through ticketmaster, and you can find them here.
The SEF Pre-Olympic program:
A’ Group
Slovenia
New Zealand
Croatian
The program
Slovenia-Croatia (2/7 17:30)
Croatia-New Zealand (3/7 17:30)
New Zealand-Slovenia (4/7, 17:30)
B’ Group
Hellas
Egypt
Dominican Republic
The program
Egypt-Dominican Republic (2/7, 21:00)
Dominican Republic-Greece (3/7, 21:00)
Greece-Egypt (4/7, 21:00)
Semifinals
B2-A1 (6/7, 17:30 or 21:00)
B1-A2 (6/7, 17:30 or 21:00)
Final (7/7, 9:00 p.m.)
Source: Sport Fm
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