9 Olympic Basketball Team Qualifiers Announced by IOC

The Olympics Basketball Competition participants are almost competition with just a little less than one year before the auspicious date of August 8, 2008 which is the inaugural for the 2008 Olympic games. Nine teams are assured of participation in the basketball competition in Beijing next year. By virtue of their performances & wins in IOC & FIBA sanctioned basketball competition for the past years, only an elite roster of the 12 best teams in world basketball will see action in the Olympics basketball courts of the Wukesong Indoor Stadium in Beijing.

China is the only exception in the bunch. By just being Olympic host next year, they have automatically gained an entry which is just in keeping with tradition of the Olympics. The second Olympic team qualifier is Team Spain which gained their entry by winning the FIBA sanctioned championship back in 2006. The third is Angola which got their ticket by topping the African regionals. The top two finishers in the FIBA Americas championships U.S.A & Argentina also qualified to participate. Like wise, the Islamic Republic of Iran by winning in Asia. Australia also qualifies by being champions in the Oceania regionals. The most recent addition to this elite qualifiers are the Russian team by winning the Eurobasket 2007 and Lithuania by capturing the third place from the same competition.

Only three slots are up for grabs and that will be decided July of 2008 where the 12 best non-qualifying teams from all the regions fight it out. The teams participating in this July competition are New Zealand, Cameroon, Canada, Greece, Cape Verde, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Germany, Croatia and Slovenia.

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The 2008 Olympics basketball champions will be decided and declared on championship day august 24, 2008.