Basketball: Covid-19 knocks out Senegal from Tokyo 2020
By George Aluo
Senegal’s hope of qualifying for the basketball event of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has been dashed by Covid-19.
Basketball’s world governing body, FIBA in a release made available to newstap.com.ng disclosed that Senegal would forfeit their qualifiers against Puerto Rico and Italy in a tournament that begins tomorrow.
According to FIBA, Senegal’s build up in Germany was disrupted by Covid-19.
“The national team of Senegal will not participate in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Belgrade, Serbia.
FIBA was informed by the National Federation of Senegal about COVID-19 related disruptions to their preparations in Germany. Despite continuous effort from FIBA and the German Basketball Federation to support the Senegalese delegation, the team will not be able to travel to Belgrade and take part in the OQT.
The games Puerto Rico vs Senegal and Senegal vs Italy will not take place and Senegal will lose these two games by forfeit,” FIBA disclosed.
The other matches of the Olympic qualifiers would however go ahead as planned.
The four teams that qualify in Belgrade and Victoria, Canada will join the eight teams that already earned their country’s participation at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Argentina, Australia, France, Iran, Nigeria, Spain and the United States qualified directly via the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019. Japan qualified as the host of the Olympic Games.
