Croatia to play Olympics 2020 basketball qualifying tournament  

Dario Šarić (Photo: Fiba.com)

19 September 2019 – The Croatian basketball team will play in the qualifying tournament for the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020, FIBA has confirmed today. 

All 24 teams that will compete in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments have been confirmed following the conclusion of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 and the release of an updated FIBA World Ranking, presented by NIKE.

Croatia won their place in the tournament thanks to their world ranking of no.14.

The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 produced seven directly qualified teams for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Japan received automatic qualification as the hosts of the event. The four remaining places in the 12-team Tokyo 2020 Olympic field are reserved for the winners of each of the four FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, set to take place on June 23-28, 2020.  

The FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments will include the 16 best-placed non-qualified teams from the FIBA Basketball World Cup and two highest-ranked countries per region in the FIBA World Ranking, presented by NIKE. The ranking was updated to include the latest results from the World Cup.

The teams are: Angola and Senegal (Africa), Mexico and Uruguay (Americas), China and Korea (Asia-Oceania), and Croatia and Slovenia (Europe).

(FIBA)

“We are really happy to be included and that next summer we will have the chance to come together for this important competition. Before that, however, we have two qualifying matches for the European champs in February and that is our focus,” coach Veljko Mršić said. 

(FIBA rankings)

Olympic qualifying is set to start on 6 June which means Croatia should be able to rely on all seven of their NBA stars.