ARG - Sanchez undecided on national team

BUENOS AIRES (FIBA Americas Championship) - Argentina's Olympic gold-medal winning point guard Juan Ignacio Sanchez admits he is still undecided whether or not to compete in August's FIBA Americas Championship where the Athens victors will hope to book a ticket to defend their crown at the Beijing Games.

Sanchez, a 29-year-old who plays for Spanish-based club Unicaja Malaga, has suffered from fatigue throughout the latter stages of the domestic season and admits he still has a lot of thinking to do.

"This is a very personal decision," Sanchez told Ole.com.

"I want to rest, clear my mind and then see if I am in good enough shape to join the national team or not. The thing is to be useful for the team. If I am uncomfortable, I'd prefer to yield the place to another man."

Sanchez, known as Pepe, acknowledged the prospect of not representing his country was not one to be taken lightly, but insisted he would have to be positive before announcing his decision.

"The most difficult thing is to say 'no' to the national team, so I will wait until the last minute to see if I can take strength from somewhere in my body to play.

"I am (nearly) 30 years old and the fact of not having stopped last season affected my physical form this year."

Without stars like Manu Ginobili, Fabricio Oberto and Walter Herrmann, Argentina coach Sergio Hernandez will be forced to play effectively a B-Team in the Las Vegas tournament.

But confident Sanchez believes that the reigning Olympic champions will have no problems in booking one of the two places directly allocated to teams at the

FIBA Americas Championship for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"The B-Team has turned into a mix of players," he said. "A lot of players were B some time ago and now they are A.

"If they take on the challenge, there is nothing to fear, because they will demonstrate that they can do things as we did before. They deserve an opportunity because they won a chance at their respective club teams.

"I think we have enough high-quality players to qualify for the Olympics without any problems."

FIBA