Indian women's basketball team gets entry to Tokyo 2020 qualifier event

In an exciting development for Indian basketball, the Indian women's team has made the cut for the FIBA Pre-Qualifying Olympic event despite finishing last in the ongoing Asia Cup, basketball's apex council announced in a release on their official website. The news comes after the international basketball federation decided to include India in the qualifiers due to unavailability of a host for Division-B matches.

In accordance to the original tournament rules, India would not have made the cut, having finished eighth and last in Division-A of the FIBA Women's Asia Cup basketball tournament in Bangalore. The top seven teams of Division-A and the winner of Division-B were initially marked to make it to pre-qualifiers.

Though the decision was taken on Friday morning, prior to India vs Philippines in the seventh-place playoff match, FIBA did not release any information on the matter and the development only came to light when India was included in the pre-qualifying draw ceremony held on Saturday.

India relegation status, from Division-A to Division-B of the FIBA Women's Asia Cup, remains unclear as well. If the Division-B tournament is not held in due course, India could retain its spot in the elite Division-A for the next edition of the continental championship.

The FIBA Women's Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Tokyo 2020 in the Asia-Oceania region is slated to start from November 14-17. The host for the same will be announced next week. A total of eight teams will compete for four spots at the FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournaments 2020 in February next year.

With more than 100 teams taking part in this new format, the system will also include a new qualification system for the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2022 and also the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2021.