TUR - Basketball wins big on first day in Turkey
ISTANBUL (FIBA World Championship) - The opening day of the FIBA World Championship was a huge success. That was the message from FIBA Secretary General and IOC member Patrick Baumann, who held his daily briefing with the media in Istanbul shortly before Sunday's game between the United States and Slovenia. Baumann cited the competitiveness of the ...
ISTANBUL (FIBA World Championship) - The opening day of the FIBA World Championship was a huge success.
That was the message from FIBA Secretary General and IOC member Patrick Baumann, who held his daily briefing with the media in Istanbul shortly before Sunday's game between the United States and Slovenia.
Baumann cited the competitiveness of the games and also recognized some of the youngsters that made stunning debuts with their senior teams, including France's electric guard Andrew Albicy and Team USA's Eric Gordon.
"It's going to be a very open championship," Baumann said.
"We had six game within the 10-point range.
"As predicted, there are many teams with a chances to win medal."
Albicy, a member of France's gold-medal winning side at the U20 European Championship in Croatia earlier this summer, has caused a buzz all over Turkey with his performance.
The 20-year-old scored 13 points in France's 72-66 Group D triumph over Spain.
Albicy's coach Vincent Collet gushed with praise of the effort, calling his display "exceptional."
Gordon, 21, caught fire from long range and poured in 16 points in the Americans’ 106-78 victory over Croatia.
Some of the big-name players couldn't represent their countries this summer, but the tournament isn’t suffering.
"The level isn't less," Baumann said.
"The technical level isn't less than what we saw in Beijing and it's time for some of these players to step out of the shadow of their companions.
"I'm sure you (journalists) are going to write about them for the next four, five or six years if they do well."
Organizers are celebrating the fact that fans have travelled to Turkey from all over the world.
"Thirty percent of the tickets went to foreign fans, and that is three times more than previous record at other World Championships," Baumann said.
Slovenia, as expected, had the most fans with 3,000 packing the Abdi Ipecki to watch their big victory over Tunisia while Lithuania had 2,000 attend their game in Izmir against New Zealand.
Argentina, the number one team in the FIBA World Rankings, had 1,000 supporters in Kayseri.
Lebanon, Spain and France also had 1,000 fans.
The huge interest was also reflected by the more than 1.5million people looking at FIBA.com to follow the tournament results, news and interviews.
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