THE Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team, D’Tigress on Friday, February 9, secured the qualification ticket to feature at the Paris Paris 2024 Olympics.
D’Tigress who featured at the last tournament in Tokyo 2020 had suffered a setback after they lost with a whooping sixty-four margin 46-100 to the United States of America, USA in the match day of the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
But despite the loss, the Rena Wakama tutored side booked the ticket after Belgium defeated Senegal, giving Nigeria the advance to the Olympics based on head-to-head advantage ahead of Senegal in group A.
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To gain the ticket, the top three out of the four countries in each group will play each other in a round-robin format.
In group A, Nigeria was pitted against powerhouse USA, Belgium, and Senegal and will need to garner the maximum to qualify.
The match day one saw Nigeria’s victory against Senegal, 72-65 while the USA won Belgium 81-79, placing USA on the top and Nigeria second on the log with three points.
In match day two, Nigeria suffered a huge loss to the USA, 46-100 while Belgium defeated Senegal 97-66. After this result, the USA maintained the top position with four points whil e Belgium displaced Nigeria to occupy the second and Nigeria at the position garnering three points respectively.
Senegal had two points after losing two matches.
Despite the one match left for each team to end the three matches round-robin format, Nigeria already won by the head-to-head rule.
The head-to-head rule states in the case of a tie, the result of the game between the teams concerned determines who stays on top.
This rule favored Nigeria who beat Senegal when they played against them.
This is the third time, Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball will qualify for the Olympics.
Their first appearance was in 2004. After sixteen years, they qualified in 2020 and returned to back in 2024.
The Paris Olympics will commence in July 2024.