- Mondelo: “If we’re all right, we’ll achieve the Olympic goal.”
Lucas Mondelo, coach of the Spanish women’s basketball team, said Thursday that if “all” their players are well, they will achieve the “goal” of qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
“With greater or lesser difficulty I believe we will achieve the objective. Suffering, fighting, facing it as a new challenge and with a lot of ambition because there is a very nice prize that is to play an Olympics,” said the Catalan trainer.
The coach of the current continental champion after the victory in the last EuroBasket analyzed each of the rivals his pupils will face in search of the ticket to the next games and the fact that the seat is in China. About the hosts, Mondelo recalled that “they play at home and stop their league for three weeks to prepare”.
In relation to South Korea, he followed the same line:” the same thing happens, they stop their league, they are 2 or 3 weeks getting ready and the journey they have to make is a few hours by plane so they don’t have jet lag, ” he commented.
In his view, Britain will have the” same concern ” as Spain on issues of time lag, displacement, and tiredness. “It’s Europe’s fourth-ranked, it’s a great team with great players. We had a hard time beating them at the European, ” he admitted.
Referring to the format and venue of the Asian tournament, the selector recognized that “the positive part is that it is a group where three teams are ranked and that gives room to make mistakes”, while on the negative side he cited the long shift, jetlag and all the logistics involved in moving to China.
- Great Britain and Korea join China as rivals of Spain in the pre-Olympic
The draw has just taken place this Wednesday at the headquarters of FIBA in Mies (Switzerland) has offered that Great Britain and Korea will join China as rivals of Spain in one of the four tournaments Pre-Olympic female basketball that will take place from the 6th to the 9th of the next month of February. The team of Lucas Mondelo should not have problems to tie a square for the Games in Tokyo 2020, as will the Olympic event three of the top four of the Olympic qualifiers, which will take place in Foshan (China).
Spain already knew from Tuesday that China would be one of its three rivals. The fact of being head of the series and that three of the four countries that host the tournaments Pre-Olympic European (Belgium, France, and Serbia) made the Spanish team become a part of the group of China.
In today’s draw, Spain has met its other two rivals, Britain and Korea. The first is one of the most successful selections in the European basketball of recent years, as shown by its fourth place in the last EuroBasket 2019, it is best-ever ranking. Korea, for its part, is one of the most potent selections in Asia but is one step or two below Spain’s potential.
The Pre-Olympic will be played in Belgium (Oostende), China (Foshan), France (Bourges) and Serbia (Belgrade) and the top three qualifiers of each (or the first two in the groups in which the United States and Japan are, already classified as world champion and host), will be qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
- Isabel Fernandez: “After 20 years, we have medal chances in Tokyo.”
The former judoka Isabel Fernandez has been convinced this Friday in Madrid that Spanish judo will win an Olympic medal, 20 years after the last one.
The break-in of Niko Sherazadishvili, 2018 World Champion in Baku in the -90 category, opens the door to the podium. “Minimum, a medal. We have people who are doing very good results”, about the seven judokas Spaniards who are in positions that give you access to the Games, although it is aware of the difficulty of the Olympics: “everything is played in one day, and that day you have to be one hundred percent. It’s not just one thing, but you have to be quick, be focused, don’t let it come down.”
Fernandez keeps alive the hope in the Spanish athletes he expects “to give everything”.