China confirms roster for Olympic basketball qualifying tournament

BEIJING - China's national men's basketball team has announced a 12-player list for the upcoming Olympic qualifying tournament in Canada, with Zhao Yanhao and Zhu Mingzhen missing out on the competition.

The 12 participants representing China are Xu Jie, Hu Mingxuan, Zhao Jiwei, Zhang Zhenlin, Zhou Peng, Ren Junfei, Liu Chuanxing, Shen Zijie, Zhou Qi, Lu Wenbo, Wang Shaojie and Wu Qian.

After finishing the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers in the Philippines with four straight wins, the Chinese team then traveled to the competition site of Victoria in Canada.

Zhao Yanhao and Zhu Mingzhen, who played in the Asia Cup qualifiers, will not participate in the Olympic qualifiers.

According to the list, guard Wu Qian's jersey number has changed from 1 to 33, the same as at his Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) club the Zhejiang Golden Bulls.

As the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup produced seven directly qualified teams for the 2020 Olympics and Japan received automatic qualification as the hosts, the four remaining places in the 12-team Tokyo 2020 Olympic field are reserved for the winners of each of four FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments in Victoria, the Serbian capital of Belgrade, Kaunas in Lithuania, and Croatia's Split.

China are in Group A, and will take on Canada on June 30 and Greece on July 1.