Sports Editorial, February 11 (EFE).- The Spanish women's basketball team will be present at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games since the victory won by Japan against Canada (82-86) this Sunday in the pre-Olympic tournament from Sopron, assures the Spanish team. of the three places at stake for this summer's event.

For Spain, this will be its sixth participation in the Olympic Games, an event in which it made its debut during the Barcelona edition in 1992 and in which it achieved its greatest success in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, winning the silver medal. At Tokyo 2021, he finished in sixth place.

The team led by Miguel Méndez has to face Hungary this afternoon (5:30 p.m.) but will do so with the certainty that it would occupy second place if it wins tied with Japan and third if it loses because it would have the same number that Canada will not, however, fall to fourth place, which is the only one not to give a ticket to Paris, after beating the North American team.

Spain lost on day one to Japan, who then lost to Hungary, and beat Canada on day two, who in turn beat the home team.

Japan took the lead in a close match, but Canada tied it at 79 with five minutes remaining, putting their victory and Spain's ticket to the Games in doubt. In this tense moment, a basket from Saori Miyazaki and two other actions from Maki Takada gave the initiative and confidence back to the Asian team to put victory back on track.

With this victory, in addition to facilitating Spain's qualification for the Games, Japan also assured of repeating itself in the Olympic event after being the big surprise of the Tokyo Games. In this event three years ago, the Japanese team surprised Belgium in the quarterfinals and France in the semifinals to reach a final where they held off the United States (90-75) and ended up win the money. EFE

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