(This article first appeared in ENDI.com written by Fernando Ribas Reyes. We translated from Spanish and offer to our readers)
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San Juan, PR – The Puerto Rican team will travel to Tokyo this Sunday, where they will play against the host team and France, prior to their first match at the Olympics.
The National Women’s Basketball Team already has its uniform and its well packed suitcases to embark on a trip to Japan this Sunday with a view to its Olympic debut.
PR women’s new uniform for the Tokio Olympics. (David Villafane/ENDI Staff)
The members of the selected team have already been given the uniforms that they will wear at the Olympic Games, which will begin on July 23. And having them in their hands reminded them that they are close to being the first Olympic basketball players in Puerto Rico and even what the letters and numbers that their uniforms wear on the front and on their backs represent.
“I loved the uniform and the flag that comes down the side,” said the captain of the National Team, Pamela Rosado, about the design of the uniform.
“I have number 24,” added Jazmon Gwathmey. “It is the number of the date of birth. It is the number of Kobe (Bryant) ”.
The team has spent the last two months in and out of competitions that have required specific approaches and are still, in general terms, to change their mentality towards the Olympics.
The group has been playing in Belgium and then playing in the AmeriCup Tournament in the past few weeks.
“I think when we get to Japan, that’s where they will understand,” said national team coach, Jerry Batista.
The squad will travel directly to Japan on Sunday because there it will complete its preparation and because it has two commitments prior to the start of its participation in the Games on July 27 against China. The team will play in Japan against the host and against France.
The national team leaves for Tokyo with a mentality of going to compete in their first Olympiad against the world’s elite teams, such as Belgium and Australia, which will be their second and third opponents, respectively, on their Olympic calendar.
Meanwhile, on Sunday the bulk of the delegation of athletes from Puerto Rico also leaves for Finland, where they will do a training and acclimatization base to the time change before moving to Tokyo, on July 16.
That bulk of the delegation does not include a handful of athletes who have already started their trips to Tokyo, such as Verónica Toro, who trains in Italy, or such as track and field athletes Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and Wesley Vázquez, who are in Europe. training and competing.
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