Paris 2024: D’Tigress Drawn Alongside Host Nation France

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games women’s basketball draw placed Nigeria’s national women’s team, D’Tigress, in a difficult group.

On Tuesday, basketball icons Penny Taylor and NBA legend Carmelo Anthony oversaw the draw for the Olympic Basketball Tournaments at the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland.

The draw pitted D’Tigress against Canada, Australia, and host nation France in Group B.

The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) uses world rankings and geography to determine the draw principles for the women’s Olympic basketball tournament.

Also Read: Nigeria Wins African Senior Wrestling Championship

12 teams were divided into four pots. Each group consisted of a minimum of one and a maximum of two teams from Europe, while Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania each have no more than one team per continent in each group.

Canada, Australia, and France hold higher rankings than the Nigerian women’s basketball team.

United States, the reigning world champions, face Germany, Japan and Belgium in Group C.

While, Group A has Serbia, Spain, China and Puerto Rico.

The first two teams in each group qualify automatically for the quarter-finals of the tournament while the best two third-place teams also stand a chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals.

The Basketball event at the Paris 2024 Olympics holds at the Decathlon Arena – Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille.

D’Tigress sit at 12th in the world rankings, while Australia, Canada, and France hold the third, fifth, and seventh positions, respectively.

D’Tigress lost to France at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

This is the third time D’Tigress will qualify for the Olympics Games after featuring at Athens 2004 and Tokyo 2020.

The Paris Olympics will host the Women’s Basketball Tournament from July 29 to August 11.