France wins Olympic Basketball test event

France have claimed victory in the London International Basketball Invitational, an Olympic test event and the first event to bring spectators in to the Olympic Park.

Great Britain finished in fifth place in the tournament which is part of the London Prepares Series, but narrowly missed out on a higher spot after a close defeat by Serbia on Thursday and a tense 91-90 loss to Australia on the final day of competition.

Behind the victorious French squad who beat Serbia 80-77 in Sunday’s closely fought match were Australia who took second place and Croatia who came third after a win over China on the final day.

The sell-out tournament was praised by players and FIBA officials who said that it was ’an excellent event with strong support from spectators’.

Nate Reinking from Great Britain said of the venue and the event: ’It’s a great venue, it does Britain proud. The set up is very nice, well organised. It’s a good taster for next year.’

Robert Archibald, a veteran of the Great Britain squad added: ’I was pleasantly surprised this week. Three thousand tickets were all snatched up...the sport this week has been great.’

The event brought one of the best ever Basketball line-ups to Great Britain and also gave the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) the chance to test parts of its operations including the court; results, timing and scoring systems; workforce and flow of spectators.

Debbie Jevans, Director of Sport at LOCOG said of the event: ’It has been so fantastic to see competitive sport played in Olympic Park for the first time and see spectators soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying world class sport within the Basketball Arena. We will now sit down with FIBA as well as working with the athletes in order to do a full debrief which will aid our planning for next year.’

For results and information about the London International Basketball Invitational visit the website http://www.londonpreparesseries.com/basketball




Notes to editors:

As it heads towards its £2bn budget for staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games, LOCOG has seven domestic Tier One Partners - adidas, BMW, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB. There are seven domestic Tier Two Supporters – Adecco, ArcelorMittal, Cadbury, Cisco, Deloitte, Thomas Cook and UPS. There are now twenty-six domestic Tier Three Suppliers and Providers – Aggreko, Airwave, Atkins, Boston Consulting Group, CBS Outdoor, Crystal CG, Eurostar, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, G4S, GSK, Gymnova, Heathrow Airport, Heineken UK, Holiday Inn, John Lewis, McCann Worldgroup, Mondo, Next, The Nielsen Company, Populous, Rapiscan Systems, Rio Tinto, Technogym, Thames Water, Ticketmaster and Trebor.

There is one domestic Tier One Paralympic Games Partner, Sainsbury’s and one domestic Tier Three Paralympic Supplier, Otto Bock.

The Worldwide Olympic Partners signed up for London 2012 are Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow Chemical Company, GE, McDonald’s, Omega, Panasonic, Procter and Gamble, Samsung and Visa.