Russia has been excluded from qualification for the Olympic men’s basketball tournament in Paris next year, basketball’s international governing body FIBA announced on Tuesday.
The decision was widely anticipated as FIBA had suspended international matches for Russian teams since shortly after last year’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Olympic Committee supports allowing individual athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus to compete as neutrals, but does not allow them to compete for the national team as they do in basketball.
Russia’s world rankings were high enough to qualify for this year’s Olympic qualifying tournament, but the place would go to Bulgaria as the second highest-ranked team from Europe, FIBA said on the IOC’s recommendation. said in the statement quoted.
Russia’s women’s team had already missed out on qualification when they were suspended from qualifying for the World Cup and Eurobasket last year.
There was no information from FIBA on Tuesday about 3-on-3 basketball, which is also an Olympic sport.
