From a mere suspension of its events since last March, the world basketball governing body decided to just move the 3x3 OQT among other activities to next year in line with the pushback of the Tokyo Olympics.
The booming halfcourt basketball discipline was set to be introduced as a medal event for the first time in history in the postponed Summer Games.
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Made up of top 3x3 players Joshua Munzon and Alvin Pasaol with PBA cagers CJ Perez and Mo Tautuaa, the 20th-ranked Gilas Pilipinas 3x3 squad was supposed to participate in the OQT slated from March 18-22 in India.
The Philippines was bracketed with the Dominican Republic, Slovenia, France and Qatar in Group C of the 20-team qualification, where the top three teams were supposed to be given tickets to the Olympics.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the qualifier was just previously moved to still undetermined date later this year before being delayed to 2021 for good.
Meanwhile, the FIBA have called events this year for good namely FIBA 3x3 U17 Zone Cups, including qualifiers, FIBA 3x3 U23 and the FIBA World Tour events in cities of Prague, Lausanne, Los Angeles and Nanjing.
FIBA also added that while COVID-19 situation has already improved in other countries, all other events this year continue to be cancelled. No official 3x3 competitions will be allowed at least until August as the federation keeps monitoring the crisis on a regular basis.
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