Jordan fail to qualify to Olympic event

Jordan’s national basketball team lost to Puerto Rico 93-52 in their second match at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Men (OQT) currently under way in Caracas, Venezuela. Jordan failed to move past the first round of the OQT after they also went down 107-63 to World No. 4 Greece in their first match. The Kingdom needed to win one match to move to the quarter-final round, and keep alive chances at an Olympic slot as Asia’s second and third teams are playing the OQT play-off stage where three teams will qualify via the OQT to join nine teams that have already qualified to the London Games basketball event — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Great Britain, Spain, Tunisia and the USA. Jordan lost the chance to automatically qualify to the 2012 Olympic Games when they lost 70-69 to China in the final of the 26th FIBA Asia Basketball Championship. It was the first time in the country’s history to play the Asian final. The Jordanian team also recently finished third in the West Asian Basketball Association Championship and failed to move to the Asian Cup. Despie controversies that have marred the game since 2009, Jordan reached the 2010 WorldBasketball Championship after beating Lebanon in the third-placed match at the 25th FIBA Asia Championship. They were fourth at the Doha Asian Games in 2006. In 2007, they won the King Abdullah Cup and became the first Arab team to win the William Jones Cup. The squad later won the 17th Arab Basketball Championship for the first time and finished runners-up to Egypt at the Pan-Arab Games.