Santiago Women’s Basketball Team Prepares for Olympic Qualification in Colombia

Santiago, Chile. The Women’s National Basketball Team will travel to Colombia to play the first stage of Olympic qualification which will be in November.

“It is certainly difficult. We wanted a medal and it couldn’t be. We have a tournament in November,” said the captain of the National Team, Pamela Rosado.

Puerto Rico played today, Saturday, for positions from fifth to eighth in the Pan American Games.

The national leader, Jerry Batista, decided to give a partial rest to the players who saw a lot of action in the preliminary stage and who will be in the team that will go to Colombia, such as Rosado and Isalys Quiñones, among others.

“Although we will have a few days off in Colombia, we didn’t want them to arrive completely worn out,” she said.

The National Team will play in Medellín, Colombia, from November 9 to 12, the American prequalifier of four teams, of which two advance to the second and final stage of Olympic qualification to be held in February 2024. The rivals will be Colombia, Canada and Venezuela.

The team will arrive with the bad taste of defeat in the Pan American Games, where the bronze medal it won in the Lima 2019 edition was not defended. In Santiago, the team was playing the entire preliminary stage from behind on the scoreboard.

Also because of the agonizing process to obtain permission from FIBA ​​to release the players from their club responsibilities to join the national teams. Batista said that he suffered those rules and that they will be repeated in Colombia. The National Team arrived in Santiago with part of its main players. However, Batista announced that he will have the complete team in Medellín one day before the event.

“The problem with this date of October, November and February is that FIBA ​​pushes you to do guerrilla warfare. Mya (Hollingsworth) and Arella (Guirantes) are both in Italy and FIBA ​​releases them 72 hours before. But they are in Italy and have to travel to Medellín,” he said. “And we are going to face Colombia in the first game in Medellín, which has its entire team here.”

At least five or six players from Santiago will go to Medellín, Batista said. Tayra Meléndez, Isalys Quiñones, Jackie Benítez and Rosado are seeded in the pre-Olympic.

“Of the rest we are thinking of taking one or two. We are looking for players to play a specific role for us. In that sense we have to see which players can give us something specific,” said Batista.

Of the group that is in Santiago, some like Sofía Roma, Kaela Hilaire, Ashley Torres had plenty of playing time. Nairimar Vargas started the first game, but after an injury he did not return to uniform.

Jennifer O’Neill will also play in Medellín. Batista said that the shipowner could not reach Santiago due to an unexpected situation.

2023-10-28 17:18:27
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