OK this is the reason I don't like/understand how the Olympics goes about selecting teams to qualify for Athens. The way it works in 2004 is 3 teams form the Americas got in playing in their tourny: US, Argentina, Puerto Rico; 3 teams from Euro Tourny; 1 team from Asia tourny; 1 team from Africa tourny: Angola; 2 automatic bids from Athens (host country) and Yugoslavia (winner World Championships); and finally 2 from Oceania tourny: Australia and New Zealand. http://www.nba.com/global/olympics2004_qualifiers.html The thing that I don't understand is this whole Oceania Tournament. Only 2 teams were in the tourny, Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand lost to the Boomers but New Zealand is still going to the Olympics?!? Germany lost today to Italy and was eliminated from the European Championships and thus are not going to be going to Athens. Several other good teams are also not going to go to the Olympics i.e. Canada, Brazil, Turkey, etc. (I guess Mark Cuban can heave a sigh of relief that Dirk and Nash are not going to be in the Olympics) It is obvious to me that the Oceania region that features countries like New Guinea are underdeveloped in the basketball community. I would think they should only get one bid as Asia and Africa are given. Am I missing something as to why New Zealand is going to get go to the Olympics over teams like Germany, Canada, Turkey, Brazil, etc.? If I remeber correctly New Zealand did place relatively high in the World Championships. Possibly the number of bids each region receives is determined by their placement in the World Championships.
An Oceania tournament? There has got to be more to qaulifying for the Olympics than that. Let me know what you find because this doesn't seem fair at all. I haven't heard anyone complaining about it which leads me to believe there are other factors... Stuart
I found this post from someone at an Australian Basketball site, thouht I would share it. I know it cleared things up for me. Stuart
thanks Sabonis and tuus for your explanations. Although New Zealand placed high in the World's I just can't see them being as good as some of the teams like France, Canada, Germany, etc. Having only two teams in the Oceania tourny and having both teams automatically qualify is really weak in my opinion. Look at what all the teams had to get through to qualify in the Americas and Euro tournaments. They had to go through a grueling 10 games in 12 days or so basketball fest just for the chance to go to Athens. It would have been nic to see New Zealand actually have to win some games in a qaulifying tourny to get an Olympic bid. I wish they could have played in the European Tournament to see how they would have placed.
