Taking the Olympic delay in stride
Makeup of men’s team in the air as B.C. qualifier likely rescheduled
It has been 20 years since Canada played a men’s basketball game at the Olympics, and waiting another year to possibly end that drought seems at best a minor inconvenience during the spread of the coronavirus. The Canadian team should still get a chance to achieve that goal, and they expect it to come on home soil.
With the International Olympic Committee’s decision to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Games until no later than the summer of 2021, Canada Basketball officials are in a holding pattern with plans for their men’s team.
“It’s just a difficult situation and we haven’t lost anything yet, so we’re just doing the best we can,” Glen Grunwald, Canada Basketball’s chief executive officer, said Tuesday.
FIBA, the world governing body for basketball, has told Canadian officials it is likely the final men’s qualification tournament originally scheduled for this June in Victoria, one of four being held, will likely be held in the same location next year. Canada was in a group that included China, Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey and Uruguay, all vying for one Olympic spot.
“I do know their intention before (the postponement) was to maintain the same qualification structure, which would mean the same four tournaments, the same six teams in each of the tournaments and I would assume that would stay the same,” Grunwald said. “There’s no reason to change it right now.”
The dates of those tournaments are still unknown since the dates for the rescheduled Olympics have yet to be announced.
And because of that, the eternal question of who will eventually play for the Canadian men’s team is sure to resurface.
A number of high-profile NBAers, among them Jamal Murray of the Denver Nuggets, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder, RJ Barrett of the New York Knicks and Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies, had publicly committed to playing for Canada this June. But without knowing what the 2021 Olympic schedule and what the NBA schedule might look like, nothing can be confirmed.
“FIBA is talking to the NBA,” Grunwald said. “Not that we can’t, but I am sure they have enough things to handle.”
The women’s program is in far less uncharted territory. Canada, ranked fourth in the world and with top eight finishes at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, has already qualified for the Tokyo Games.
“They earned the spot and they get to keep it, that’s the beauty of that,” Grunwald said.
Plans were in place for the Canadian women to hold a final training camp in Kariya City, Japan, before the Games. There were also plans for exhibition games in Edmonton, the team’s home base, The team is hopeful all plans can be carried over to 2021. Having the uncertainty cleared up eases some of the worries.
“I'm glad they came to the decision sooner rather than later and think (it is) just a bit of a sigh of relief for athletes, knowing what is going to happen,” head coach Lisa Thomaidis told The Canadian Press. “And now to actually have a date, like, OK, it’s going to be in a year from now. So I think it’s all good.”
The postponement, while understandable and accepted as a necessary move by members of the team, will throw a few wrenches into plans that were already in place for the women. And coming up with a training camp schedule and finding exhibition games to play before going to the Olympics will cause some logistical headaches for Canada Basketball officials.
But the IOC’s decision to do what so many see as the logical thing, and Canada’s decision before the postponement to withdraw from the Games if they were held this summer, was easily accepted.
“Proud of the leadership Team Canada showed in putting the health and safety of our families, our communities, and our country first and now that the Olympics have been postponed … another year … to put in some work,” Natalie Achonwa, a twotime Olympian, said on her twitter feed.