MANILA – The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) rescheduled the 3×3 basketball Olympic Qualifying Tournaments to next year due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
This means the Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3×3 basketball team will have to wait until next year to try to punch a ticket to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics slated from July 23 to August 8, 2021.
Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) cagers Jaymar Perez and Moala Tautuaa teamed up with Joshua Munzon and Alvin Pasaol to form the country’s 3×3 basketball squad. Stefan Stojanic of Serbia serves as the head coach while Darko Krsman is the conditioning coach.
Tautuaa and Perez were part of the Gilas Pilipinas 3×3 team which won the inaugural gold in the 30th Southeast Asian Games along with fellow PBA players Chris Newsome and Jason Perkins.
The Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3×3 basketball team was supposed to compete in an Olympic qualifier in Bengaluru, India last March 18 to 22, but the event never took place following the growing cases of COVID-19.
When things are well next year, the national team will clash with Slovenia, France, Qatar, and the Dominican Republic in Pool C of the qualifier.
FIBA 3×3 also scrapped four World Tour events (Prague, Lausanne, Los Angeles, and Nanjing), the FIBA 3×3 U23 Nations League, the qualifiers to the various Zone Cups, and the FIBA 3×3 U17 Zone Cups./PN
