D’Tigress battle USA in Tokyo Olympics opener, D’Tigers face Australia
D’Tigress will play their opening match of the Tokyo Olympics against world number one, the USA on Tuesday, 27.
This is according to the official fixture released yesterday by the Federation of International Basketball Associations, FIBA.
The reigning African champions who missed out of the Rio 2016 games will be presented another chance to prove a point against the team they narrowly lost to at the 2020 Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade.
D’Tigress will then battle world number five- France on Friday, August 30 before their last game against host-Japan (10th) on Monday, August 2 in the final Group B match.
Meanwhile, the male team, D’Tigers on a 9 match unbeaten run in all competitions will dunk off their campaign on July 29 against Australia in group B at the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo.
Alongside Australia, the number one ranked team in Africa will also play winners of the Olympics Qualifying Tournaments from Serbia and Belgrade between June 29 and July 4.
Following the completion of the group games, the top two teams in each group and the two best losers will qualify for the quarter-finals.
They will be divided into
Group D (best 4 teams) and Group E (remaining 4 teams). The quarter-finals pairings for the men will be decided on August 1 with the women’s tournament draws taking place the following day.
Women’s games QF actions will be on Wednesday, August, 4th before the Semi-Finals and the Bronze Medal Game on Friday, August 6 and Saturday, August 7 respectively.
For the men, their quarter final games will come up on August 3 before the semi-finals two days later.
The men’s final will be played on Saturday, August 7 while the women’s final will be on Sunday, August 8.