Last Sunday, Cameroon's men's basketball team qualified for the Olympic qualifying tournament by beating Senegal 80-74 in the final of the African Zone pre-Olympic tournament held August 12-20 in Nigeria. This is the first time, since 2008, that Cameroon is winning such an international basketball tournament.  "Beating Senegal, the lions went on fire today to grab that one ticket to the Olympics qualifying tournament. Well done," wrote the Cameroon Basketball Federation (Fecabasket) in a post on its Facebook page on Sunday.

Cameroon thus joins Bahrain, the Bahamas, Poland, and Croatia as the first qualifiers for the Olympic qualifying tournaments to be held in 2024. Twenty-four teams divided into four pools of six teams will take part in these tournaments, says the International Basketball Federation (Fiba). The winner of each tournament will qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games (OG), the federation stresses. These tournaments will thus allocate the final four qualifying tickets for the next Olympics.

Seven places will be awarded at the 2023 Fiba Basketball World Cup, which takes place from August 25 to September 10 in the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia. For the time being, only France, host of the 2024 Olympics, has qualified for the men's Olympic basketball tournament. The next Olympics will take place from July 26 to August 11, 2024, in Paris, the French capital. A total of 288 players will take part in the Paris 2024 Olympic basketball tournaments, 144 per gender, according to Fiba. In both tournaments, 12 teams will compete. 

Let’s note that Cameroon’s men's basketball team has never taken part in the Olympics.

P.N.N