FIBA U19 World Championship draw held

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – The draw for the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship was held in Prague on Tuesday, ahead of this summer’s tournament which will take place in the Czech Republic’s capital city from 27 June to 7 July.

The 16 teams, representing all five of FIBA’s Continental Zones, were divided into four groups of four teams for the Preliminary Round (7-9 July), played in a standard round-robin format.

Group A: Croatia, Spain, Canada, Korea
Group B: Iran, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Argentina
Group C: Senegal, Serbia, Brazil, Australia
Group D: China, Ivory Coast, USA, Russia

The three top placed teams from each group will qualify for the Eight-Final Round (1-3 July), which consists of two groups of six. In this round, each team will face the three new teams in their group. Sparta Arena and Podvinny Mlyn Arena will host the Preliminary Round and Eight-Final Round.

The top eight teams from the Eight-Final Round will advance to the Final Round staged at the O2 Arena. The Quarter-Finals will be on Friday 5 July, with the Semi-Finals following on Saturday 6 July and the Finals on Sunday 7 July.

Lithuania are the defending champions having won the gold medal at the 2011 tournament in Latvia. They beat Serbia in the Final, while Russia edged out Argentina in the Bronze Medal Game.

The FIBA U19 World Championship is where the stars of tomorrow are born. Past editions of the tournament have seen a number of leading international players in the making, including Pau Gasol, Andrei Kirilenko and Juan Carlos Navarro (1999); Nicolas Batum (2007); Andrew Bogut (2003); Vince Carter and Wang Zhizhi (1995) and most recently Jonas Valanciunas (2011).