Ankoay’s Olympic Dream Ends Despite Victory: Madagascar Eliminated in 3×3 Basketball Group Stages

Having finished third in group A, the Ankoay were eliminated in the group stages. France, Lithuania and Poland have won the three tickets for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

End of the adventure. The Ankoay senior men’s 3×3 basketball Olympic dream ended Saturday in Debrecen, Hungary, despite their 21-16 victory over Switzerland. This victory counting towards Olympic qualification pushed the Ankoays to come out with their heads held high on Hungarian soil on Saturday.

Ranked third in Group A with 50 points (1 win, 2 losses) behind Lithuania (2 wins, 1 loss and 58 points), Germany (2 wins, 1 loss and 53 points) and ahead of Switzerland (1 win, 1 loss and 58 points). 2 defeats and 53 points) with their direct confrontation which made the difference, the Ankoay of Madagascar paid dearly for the defeat at the last minute (16-17) against Germany last Wednesday.

For its last match, the Malagasy national team had a tiny chance of advancing to the quarter-finals under two conditions, but one of them did not come true: the first condition was that Madagascar beat Switzerland and second condition was that Lithuania crushes Germany. This last scenario did not happen. Lithuania was beaten by Germany with a score of 16-18. With this Lithuanian defeat, any chance of Malagasy qualification went up in smoke. Lithuania and Germany have reached the quarter-finals of the TQO.

Widen the gap

For the match against Switzerland, the Ankoay of Madagascar showed exemplary solidarity on the field. Their start to the match was rather good because, despite Switzerland opening the score with a superb dunk, 1-0, the gang of Livio, Elly, Anthony and Arnol had to respond by not giving up. After four minutes of play, Switzerland only led by a score of 9-8.

Having totaled five team errors, Switzerland played cautiously because with each error committed from then on, it was an opportunity for Elly and others to widen the gap after coming back to match Switzerland at 10 everywhere. Less than four minutes and fourteen seconds from the end of regulation time, the protégés of Jean de Dieu Randrianarivelo or coach Deda of the Malagasy national team widened the gap 14-10.

The Malagasy players continued their march forward, leading 17-13, 18-13 then 19-13 2 minutes from the end of the match. At one minute 36 seconds, Switzerland came back to 16-19. Livio hit the nail on the head to lead 20-16. On a final attack from the Malagasy, Elly scored the point of the Malagasy victory: 21-16 and end of the game.

Donné Raherinjatovo

2024-05-21 02:38:25
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