It was one of the beautiful Belgian stories from the last Tokyo Games. A quartet of friends from Antwerp that came close to the feat, to a success of an Olympic medal, in the very “fun” version of 3×3 basketball. But since the revelations of the Flemish daily “De Standaard” advancing a fraud, with matches invented to ensure Olympic qualification, the pretty modern tale turns into scandal.
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Lhe daily “De Standaard” reported in its edition of this Wednesday that 3×3 basketball tournaments would have been organized in Belgium, in Antwerp, between August and October 2019, in a fictitious way, to allow the Belgian Lions to collect points in order to climb the world ranking by country in 3×3, and thus be able to enter the FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments.
In total, the Flemish newspaper still reports, 27 tournaments would have been informed in this way. Two players who would have played respectively, according to the FIBA website, 26 and 9 of these tournaments, told the Standaard, on condition of anonymity, not to have played them, referring to Nick Celis, for more information. Nick Celis is one of the four Team Antwerp players who represented Belgium at the Tokyo Olympics…
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