EuroBasket Women: A “huge moment” for Turkey against Russia
Russia, Turkey, latest news, womens basketball
If there were any doubt that Turkey is experiencing a bona fide golden age of basketball, look no further than the FIBA EuroBasket Women championship match tonight. The unheralded Team Turkey will take on pre-tournament favorites/historically dominant Russia in Lodz tonight.
At stake is an automatic bid in the 2012 Olympic Games, but one can’t help imagining both of these sides to be playing in London next year: The losing team is already set to play in the Olympic qualifying round, along with Croatia, the Czech Republic and France.
Turkey overcame defending champions France in the semifinal in a 66-62 overtime thriller, leading to what center Nevin Nevlin calls “a huge moment for Turkish basketball. It’s history. We’re part of it. We’re very proud and we know 70 million people back home are proud of us.”
The upstarts will have to find a way to disassemble the Russian machine, however, but this edition of the team appears not quite as fearsome as some from EuroBasket tourneys past. While Team Russia has gone 6-2 in the tournament overall, two of those Ws came in squeakers over Slovakia and Britain, two teams the Russians were supposed to have well outclassed. On the other hand, Russia did claim an emphatic 80-65 win over Turkey on day three of the competition.
via BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site » Blog Archive » EuroBasket Women: A “huge moment” for Turkey against Russia.
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