MADRID (2016 FIBA Women's Qualifying Tournament) - Spain coach Lucas Mondelo has selected the 16 players that will compete for spots in the squad to take part in next month's FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament (WOQT). Many of those chosen have had prominent roles in recent times.

Back is Sancho Lyttle, the EuroBasket Women 2013 MVP and All-Star Five selection at the 2014 FIBA Women's World Championship. Lyttle was absent from the team that finished third at the EuroBasket Women 2015.

There is also the presence of Alba Torrens, who also electrified the crowds at both of those events.

Lyttle's return will bolster the hopes of Spain, who are trying to return to the Olympics after failing to qualify for the London Games. Anna Cruz and Laura Nicholls are also sure to have significant roles, as well as veteran point guards Laia Palau and Silvia Dominguez and the versatile Marta Xargay.

All of the players helped Spain go unbeaten at the World Championship before they faced the United States and lost, 77-64. Mondelo's team, nevertheless thrilled to have made it to the title game, had a great tournament.

"We are going to go step by step and our first goal is the Olympic qualifiers," Mondelo said. "We have a team with a real chance of reaching the Games if we are ourselves in Nantes and if no injuries hurt us.

"We know each other very well and all the players give everything for the good of the team. We deserve to go to the Games with all that we have achieved in recent years and we will fight for this goal in Nantes."

Spain will have a 10-day stage of preparations in San Fernando, where they will host a tournament and face Argentina and Australia. Next they will travel to Palencia and continue their build-up with games against Canada and Cuba and lastly, they will have friendly clashes with New Zealand in Oviedo and then Gijon.

Spain, as the No. 3 side in the FIBA World Ranking, are among the favorites heading into the WOQT (13-19 June) to claim one of the five spots on offer for the Rio de Janeiro Games.

They will face China and Venezuela in Group D and then, if they advance, take on a Group A side (Belarus, Korea or Nigeria) for the right to play in Rio. A loss in that game would leave the Spaniards needing two more wins to progress to Brazil.

Mondelo, who has been coaching and winning titles as a club coach in China, will be taking nothing for granted against the Asian side, or Venezuela, a team that has topped its group at the South American Women's Championship it is hosting in Barquisimeto.

"I know they are dangerous," Mondelo said of China, the team Spain hammered in the last eight of the World Championship two years ago. "We must not be guided by the Quarter-Finals in 2014, where we won because we all did well, and they all wrong."

FIBA