Four teams battle for final three Olympic spots

Great Britain are closer to finding out who they will face in their opening fixture at the Olympics as the qualifying tournament nears its conclusion.

Four teams are left with Russia taking on Nigeria and Lithuania facing the Dominican Republic in today’s semi-finals. The semi-final winners will automatically progress to London leaving the two losing teams to battle it out on Sunday for the remaining slot.

Two of the three qualifiers will join the likes of USA and France in Group A while the third qualifier goes into Group B with a first match against the Olympic hosts. GB have already suffered defeats to three of the four remaining teams in the qualifying tournament and could have the chance to extract revenge on home soil.

The tournament hosts, Venezuela, fell in the group stage on points difference whereas the tournament’s highest ranked team, Greece (4) were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Nigeria. Russia are the only team to win all three of their matches and will go in as favourites with their match against Nigeria as will Lithuania up against the Dominican Republic.

Great Britain continue their preparation for the Olympics with a warm-up game in France tonight, which will be shown live on ESPN UK at 5pm. This is GB’s first game since the 12 man squad for the games was selected by Chris Finch.

Olympic Qualifying Tournament

7 July- SF 1- Russia v Nigeria (17.00 local time)
7 July- SF 2- Lithuania v Dominican Republic (19.30)
8 July- Play-off SF 1 Loser v SF 2 Loser (17.00)