This has confirmed Latvia, dashing the hope of African participation in the forthcoming Paris 2024 Olympics earmarked from July 26 to August 11, after defeating Cameroon by a 13-point margin, 72-59, to move into the final, Completesports.com reports.
Cameroon has remained the only African country from the ongoing 2024 FIBA Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, OQTs, after other three countries were eliminated. It vies for a ticket out of the available four slots.
The three African countries which bowed out at the group stage are Egypt, Angola, and Côte d’Ivoire.
It may be recalled that the Cameroonian team faced a Himalayan task on their way through to the knockout stages, having lost the first match to Montenegro by a slender margin of 4 points, 66-70. They keenly contested, even securing an important win against Brazil, to end with a slim margin of 3 points, 77-74.
However, the three other African countries ended their campaign after losing their two round-robin matches. The Egyptians lost to Greece despite they didn’t have to deal with a Nigerian-born Greek power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was not featured in the match.
Greece won by a far margin of 22, 93-71, to advance to the semis where they beat Luka Doncic’s Slovenia’ squad.
Angola was humbled by Lebanon by an ultrathin margin, 70-74, while that of Cote d’ Ivoire lost by a whopping 11-margin, 81-92, to Mexico.
With the end of the round-robin games, the twenty-four participating countries are reduced to sixteen in the knock-out stages and later eight among the four host countries.
This eventual four winners will then bag the tickets for the available four slots at the 2024 Paris Olympics.