France Clinches Olympic Berth, To Meet Spain In EuroBasket Finals

By advancing to the EuroBasket final, both France and Spain qualified for the 2012 Olympics. The Tony Parker and Nicolas Batum-led French will face Pau Gasol and Ricky Rubio and the rest of the Spanish National Team this Sunday: “Spain and France will contest the European basketball championship final and have qualified for next year’s Olympics in London. Juan Carlos Navarro scored 35 points in a performance his coach called a “masterpiece” as defending champion Spain beat Macedonia 92-80 on Friday. France got 22 points from Tony Parker to beat Russia 79-71 in the late game. Nicolas Batum added 19 points for France, which reached the championship game for the first time. ‘I’ve been chasing this or 11 years and I’m am very happy that I can finally say going to the Olympics,’ Parker said.”