Basketball London 2012 Summer Olympics | Information, Photos & Qualified Teams

Basketball at the 2012 Olympic Games is scheduled to be held from 28 July to 12 August. Competitions will be held at the newly built Basketball Arena, which will seat 12,000 spectators, and the The O2 (called North Greenwich Arena because of the ban on commercialisation in arena names during Olympic events) in London. The United States men's and women's teams will be defending their current gold medal championships.

18th Basketball Olympic Tournament

London 2012

Tournament details
Olympics     2012 Summer Olympics
Host nation      Great Britain
City     London
Duration     28 July – 12 August
Men's teams     12
Women's teams     12

Official website London 2012 - Basketball

SOME COOL FACTS

• 300 basketballs will be used during the London 2012 Basketball competition.
• The tallest player in modern basketball is Yao Ming of China, who stands at a massive 7’6” (2.29m).
• In Berlin 1936, the first official Olympic Basketball tournament was held outdoors on courts made of sand that turned to mud in the rain.  
• There was an exhibition Basketball tournament at the St Louis 1904 Games, but only a few American club teams competed.

 

Competition format 

Twelve qualified nations will be drawn into two groups each consisting of six teams. After a robin-round, the four highest placed teams in each group will advance to a knock-out round to decide the medals.

QUALIFIED TEAMS

MEN

Great Britain
United States
Tunisia
Argentina
Brazil
Australia
Spain
France
China

 

WOMEN

Qualification of women's national teams. Green denotes teams that have qualified already, blue are in contention, red are eliminated and purple are teams that did not enter.

 

VENUE

At the London 2012 Olympic Games, one of the world’s most popular and fastest-growing team sports will be showcased at the Basketball Arena and North Greenwich Arena.

Venues:  

• Basketball Arena – Olympic Park (preliminaries, women’s quarter-finals); 
• North Greenwich Arena (men’s quarter-finals and women’s semi-finals onwards)

Dates: Saturday 28 July – Sunday 12 August
Medal events: 2
Athletes: 288 (144 men, 144 women, 12 teams in each event).