FIBA Americas - Olympic history lesson

MAR DEL PLATA (FIBA Americas Championship) - Three of four semifinalists have already participated at least in five Olympic Games, while Dominican Republic will try to make it for the first time in history.

Brazil have won three bronze medals in 13 Olympic appearances. Their last time was in Atlanta 1996 with an Olympic legend leading the team.
Oscar Schmidt played five Olympic Games and was the top scorer in three of them, but never went past the Quarterfinals.

Brazil’s better performances were at London 1948, Moscow 1960 and Tokyo 1964. Their last semifinal was in Mexico 1968. Since then, Brazil lost all of their five Quarterfinal games.

Argentina took Brazil’s place as the best South American team since the 2001 FIBA Americas tournament and have played every Olympic Game since then, including a Gold medal in Athens 2004 and Bronze in Beijing 2008.

Argentina have only had three Basketball teams in the Olympics before 2004. The first Argentine appearance was coincidentally in the same city of next year’s tournament.

After London 1948’s 15th place, Argentina placed fourth in Helsinki 1952 and ninth in Atlanta 1996.

Puerto Rico had their best of nine Olympic appearances in Tokyo 1964. The Islanders lost the semifinals against United States and the Bronze medal game against Brazil to finish fourth.

In Athens 2004, Puerto Rico beat Team USA in their opener and advanced to the second round. Carlos Arroyo and Daniel Santiago were part of the team that lost the Quarterfinals to Italy and the fifth place game to Greece.

Dominican Republic have already bettered their best FIBA Americas performance, as the Caribbean country had never played a semifinal before.

The two winning semifinalists will clinch the Olympic spots, while the losing sides will join Venezuela in participate in next year’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

FIBA