Women's basketball team marks route to Paris 2024 via New Zealand

Puerto Rican women's basketball's return to Olympic status resumes on February 8 in pre-Olympic competition in China. National Exam With a well-established strategy, the national leader said.

The national team is one of 16 teams that will be divided into four pre-Olympic tournaments of four teams each to compete for tickets to Paris 2024. Preliminaries for each Olympic Games begin on February 8, with a total of 10 teams qualifying for one tournament. A total of 12 Olympic berths.

Puerto Rico will play in China, and in fact it will make all the preparations for the event. On January 31, they will begin their journey to the country.

The United States and France will play in the pre-Olympic Games, but they have already qualified for Paris 2024 by being the reigning world champions and Olympic hosts. Only two teams will qualify for Paris, regardless of where they participated in the pre-Olympics. In the other two groups, three seats are in dispute.

As for Puerto Rico, the national team featured in a pre-Olympic tournament in China along with France, New Zealand and the host, and must be one of the top three to qualify for Paris 2024, France being one of those top three. If France finishes fourth, Puerto Rico should be one of the top two to qualify for the Olympics.

Looking at the competition, national captain Gerardo 'Jerry' Bautista thinks France and China top the group, so they will compete with New Zealand for the Olympics.

“The focus is on New Zealand and it's an important game for us. They are a solid team but we can beat them. It's a big team and it gives us problems in matchups. But that's what we're preparing for,” he said, based on his assessment of videos of New Zealand at events in Asia and Oceania. Bautista said.

New Zealand ranks 23rd, up six places from the last ranking update published in August 2023. Puerto Rico ranks twelfth.

Puerto Rico's pre-Olympic calendar begins on February 8 against France. The national team rests on February 9 and takes on New Zealand the following day. The match against China ends on February 11.

Bautista further reasoned that despite the emphasis on New Zealand, a win in that group would not guarantee Olympic qualification for China, so they would try to steal another game or two. He pointed to France as a potential winner because its competitiveness in China would be compromised by the fact that it is already qualified and perhaps missing its key personnel.

“We're going to prepare around France. It's good to beat them because you prepare before coming to the game against New Zealand. We'll go out and play to see how we play against France. We have an important game against New Zealand the next day. What we don't want is to win the game against China,” he said.

Bautista said the relationships within the ranks are defined Target average.

The national team made history by playing in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the summer of 2021. This will be the debut of the women's national team at the Olympics.

His road back to the Olympics began in November at the Olympic prequalifiers in Colombia. There he crossed the circuit and was drawn to one of four pre-Olympic competitions starting in February.

The group will leave for China on January 31, Bautista reported. Players like it Pamela Rosado And Deira Melendez They will travel from Puerto Rico to meet another group in New York and, together, take a trip to China, Bautista added. Mia Hollingshed, Arella Grandes And India is pagan They will join the team in China three days before the Olympics.

Bautista added that 13 players will travel. A player who is cut before the Olympics will be on the national team in China.

Bautista said 13 players are physically working or playing. The preparation of the national team will be in China, where they are scheduled to conduct a training session.