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Basketball stars Dallas' Luka Doncic, Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Minnesota's Karl-Anthony Towns all have an opportunity to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympics. However, it's likely that at least two of these stars won't make it.
FIBA conducted the draws for the Olympic qualifying tournament on November 27 to determine the final four spots for the Paris Games. Slovenia, Greece, and the Dominican Republic were all placed in the same event. Consequently, only one of these nations, at most, will secure a spot in the Olympics.
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For years, Doncic has stood out as the top player for Slovenia, Antetokounmpo has been the key player for Greece, and Towns guided the Dominican Republic to an impressive performance at the World Cup this past summer.
"These tournaments are something else," FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said.
"They are six-team tournaments, every game counts, you have 12 of the top 20 teams in the world playing there. Each game could be a quarterfinal of the World Cup or a quarterfinal of the Olympics."
Eight teams have already secured spots in the 12-team Olympic men's field. France earned qualification as the host nation, and seven other teams—four-time defending gold medalist US, World Cup champion Germany, Canada, Japan, South Sudan, Serbia, and Australia—earned their berths based on their performances in the recent summer's World Cup in the Philippines.
The format for the qualifying events is straightforward: there will be four tournaments hosted by Spain, Greece, Latvia, and Puerto Rico from July 2-7, 2024. Each tournament features six teams, and it's a winner-take-all scenario—each event will send one team to the Paris Games.
FIBA selected the four host sites on November 27, before the draw took place.
In the qualifying tournaments, each team competes in two games against its own group. The top two teams in each group then advance to the semifinals. The first-place team from Group A faces the second-place team from Group B, and vice versa, at each site. The winners of these semifinals will compete to decide the team that secures a spot in the Olympics.
(Powered by AI, Inputs by AP)
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