The 3×3 Belgian Lions won the silver medal on Saturday evening at the European Games in Krakow, Poland. In the final they were no match against Latvia: 19-11.
For Team Belgium it is the second medal, after the bronze of karateka Quentin Mahauden on Friday.
The Belgian basketball men Thibaut Vervoort, Bryan De Valck and Dennis Donkor soon faced a 8-1 deficit against a stronger Latvia and could no longer close that gap. The Belgians played the entire tournament without reserve after Caspar Augustijnen almost immediately suffered a serious knee injury in the first group match against Slovenia on Thursday.
The lack of a fourth man made itself felt against the physically strong Latvians. The Lions had already had to go deep earlier in the day in their quarter-final against Austria (21-20) and the semi-final against Germany (21-15) and clearly lacked freshness. The shots were also much less than in the previous duels. Donkor eventually scored five points, Vervoort four and De Valck two.
Latvia was already an opponent of the Lions in the group stage on Thursday. They also lost that game, 21-16. The Latvians, the Olympic champions, also defeated Belgium earlier this month in the eighth finals of the World Cup in the Austrian capital Vienna.
The European Games are included in the 3×3 basket for the points ranking towards Paris 2024.
In the game for bronze, home country Poland defeated the Germans 21-18.
2023-06-24 20:26:14
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