WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ATHENS
1998
ATHENS
The monumental courts of OAKA, Peace and Friendship of Athens and Pireo staged a World Basketball Championship for the first time. The echoes of Eurobasket ' 95 had not yet died down in the Olympic Pavilion and there were still vibrations from the court to the shores of the Aegean from the achievement of the Greek team in proclaiming themselves European champions in 1987.
It is possible that the courts would have benefited from a greater number of stars than those who finally attended, but everything contrived towards the non-attendance of the big stars from the NBA. The season long conflict between the players ' union and the franchise owners prevented the attendance of a new dream team, which would have been the fourth, and left millions of fans who were following the competition on television and the thousands who went to the matches everyday with only the dream of what might have been. Therefore Kevin Garnett, Chris Webber and Gary Payton, amongst others had to be replaced by players who were making the careers in Europe. Before calling them up it is possible that the coach, Rudy Tomjanovich had never heard of Wendell Alexis, David Wood or Jason Sasser. They were players who had never featured in the world of the prestigious coach of the Houston Rockets. Thus the USA went from brilliant to challenging and the defenders of the title four years earlier in Canada went from favourites to mere contenders.
The main challengers to the US dominance was Yugoslavia, but some of their most prestigious didn ' t turn up in Athens either. For different reasons Divac, Danilovic, Stojakovic, Gurovic and Paspalj did not come under the orders of Zeljko Obradovic, which in principle opened the doors to a number of other countries. Greece, in front of their home crowd, was a strong contender as was Russia.. Spain, Australia, Brazil, Canada and Italy composed a group of teams who also had to be taken into account one way or another.
ONLY LITHUANIA EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS
The championship was disputed by 16 nations divided into four groups with the first three in each group qualifying for the second stage where the would form two groups of six, with the results from the first round being carried forward. The first four in these groups qualified for the quarterfinals where the knockout stage began. The match-ups were as follows: the first in one group against the fourth from the other second against third, third against second and fourth against first. The semi-finals and final rounded off a competition that started on 29 July 1998 as the most open in history.
239 FUNDACIÓN PEDRO FERRÁNDIZ