DENG SWEATING OVER OLYMPIC PLACE

By Mark Woods on February 24, 2011

Luol Deng has admitted he is anxious over the prospects of Great Britain being awarded an automatic place at the Olympic Games.

With FIBA gearing up to take the vote in Lyon on March 13, the Chicago Bulls star is one of many in the sport pondering the consequences of the process which might see the hosts take up their spot at London 2012 â€“ or forced to take the hard route to qualification.

Itâ€™s left the adopted Londoner baffled by the ongoing uncertainty, having helped GB’s men fulfil the governing bodyâ€™s original demand of becoming a competitive team.

“We did what we had to do so it’s weird, definitely,” Deng told morethanthegames.co.uk. “We did everything they asked so I don’t know where we went wrong. I feel like we worked very hard to be in a position to compete but it’s out of our hands and we just have to wait and see what they decide. I have no idea when we’ll get an answer.

“If we end up having to qualify, we’ll have to just go through that process but a lot of us aren’t going to be happy. We came from Group B and went all the way to win our group last summer. We did everything they said.”

GB coach Chris Finch has previously called for Deng â€“ and his other leading players â€“ to report early this summer for their pre-Eurobasket training camp, which is likely to be held in the United States before the team head to Brazil for a warm-up tournament from August 4-11.

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