Which basketball groups are taking part in on the Olympics, when are the video games and who’re the favourites? Al Jazeera explains.
Basketball turned an official Olympic sport on the 1936 Olympic Video games in Berlin though it first featured as an illustration sport on the St Louis 1904 Olympic Video games.
Because the 2024 Olympics kicks off in Paris, right here is all you might want to know in regards to the males’s basketball competitors:
🏀 Which males’s basketball groups have certified for the Olympics?
A complete of 12 nations have certified for males’s basketball at Paris 2024:
Group A: Australia, Greece, Canada, Spain
Group B: France, Germany, Japan, Brazil
Group C: Serbia, South Sudan, Puerto Rico, United States
🏀 What’s the format of males’s Olympic basketball?
The lads’s basketball match will divide the 12 groups into three teams of 4 groups every.
The highest two from every group together with the 2 finest third-placed groups will progress to the following spherical. Then a draw will happen to find out the pairings of the quarterfinals.
The winners of the quarterfinals will progress to the semifinals. The winners of the semifinals meet within the gold medal match whereas the losers play within the bronze medal match.
Buckle up world.
The basketball goes to be HOT in Paris this summer time! 🔥#FIBAOQT x #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/mx0D62yLge
— FIBA (@FIBA) July 8, 2024
🏀 Who’re the favourites to win the gold?
The Individuals’ dominant standing in Olympic males’s basketball makes them the heavy favourites in Paris.
Staff USA have received a report 16 gold medals out of a doable 20 – together with a first-place end within the final 4 Summer season Video games.
They will count on a problem from their northern neighbours, Canada, who boast the star-studded NBA guard tandem of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray.
Germany, the 2023 FIBA World Cup winners, are additionally among the many contenders alongside host nation France, whose squad options the outstanding Victor Wembanyama, the NBA Rookie of the Yr.
Tokyo 2020 silver medallists France had a poor exhibiting on the 2023 FIBA World Cup however will benefit from the backing of a partisan residence crowd on the Olympics.
Serbia, led by reigning NBA Most Useful Participant (MVP) Nikola Jokic, can be a number one challenger, having received the silver medal on the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016.
🏀 Which high basketball gamers shall be taking part in on the Olympics?
From the legendary LeBron James to the rising star Wembanyama, the Paris 2024 Olympics arguably options the best assortment of world basketball expertise to ever participate within the video games.
4-time NBA champion James, 39, will make his Olympic return for Staff USA for the primary time since London 2012 whereas his teammate Stephen Curry, the NBA’s all-time three-point chief, will make his Olympic debut, aged 36.
France’s 20-year-old Wembanyama is predicted to have a breakout match in entrance of his residence crowd.
Standing at a towering 2.24 metres (7ft, 4 inches) and possessing an unbelievable 2.44 metre (8ft) wingspan, the Frenchman has already established himself as a once-in-a-generation expertise in his first season within the NBA.
The highlight can even be on former NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who helped lead Greece to Olympic qualification for the primary time since 2008.
🏀 What are the important thing dates for the matches?
- Group stage: Saturday to August 3
- Quarterfinals: August 6
- Semifinals: August 8
- Bronze medal match: August 10
- Gold medal match: August 10
🏀 The place will the matches be held?
- Group section matches will happen on the Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille.
- Knockout rounds shall be held on the Bercy Area in Paris.
🏀 Hold updated
You may observe the motion on Al Jazeera’s devoted Paris 2024 Olympics tournament page with all of the information and options in addition to occasion build-up and reside textual content commentary on chosen soccer, basketball, tennis and boxing fixtures. Keep knowledgeable with real-time updates from Paris 2024 with our Olympics events calendar, medal table and results pages.