Tall Blacks handed tough Olympic Qualifying draw

  • 27/01/2016
Tall Blacks coach Paul Henare (Getty Images)
Tall Blacks coach Paul Henare (Getty Images)

The Tall Blacks face a huge challenge to qualify for the Rio Olympics after being drawn in a tough tournament pool at the Olympic Qualifying tournament.

The 18 teams fighting for the final three spots at the Olympics are split up into three FIBA qualifying tournaments of six teams, with only the winner from each progressing to Rio.

New Zealand (21st ranked in FIBA world rankings) have been drawn in Group B of the Manila tournament, alongside France (5th) and the Philippines (28th).

In Group A of the same tournament is Turkey (8th), Senegal (31st) and Canada (26th).

The countries will play each group team once in the preliminaries and the top two placers advance to the knockout semi-finals.

The tournament will take place from July 4 to 10.

Meanwhile, the Tall Ferns will play Cuba and France in Group A in June's FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in France.

Ranked 22nd in the world, the New Zealanders will need to finish first or second in their pool to have any chance of progressing through to the quarter-finals.

The top five teams from the 12-strong tournament will earn berths at the Rio Olympics.

The Tall Ferns last competed at the Olympics in Beijing eight years ago, while the Tall Blacks contested the 2004 Athens Games.

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