After suffering a heartbreaking defeat against Lithuania last evening, Bosnia and Herzegovina's national team has decided not to travel to Lithuania for the second match of the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers.
The Bosnian basketball federation's decision has been motivated by the declaration of a state of emergency by the Lithuanian government yesterday.
"In accordance with the professional staff and players, we made the decision that the BiH national team will not travel together this morning for the Lithuanian national team on a charter to Vilnius, as originally planned," Bosnia's basketball federation's Secretary General Amer Cholan explained.
"We think that the situation in that part of Europe is, to put it mildly, very worrying," Cholan continued. "During the day, the Lithuanian parliament is also expected to make a decision on declaring a state of emergency, which speaks volumes."
In the wake of a Russian invasion in Ukraine, a state of emergency has been introduced in Lithuania and will be in place through March 10. The decree allows a more flexible use of the state reserve and steps up state border protection.
"In such circumstances, we believe that it would be best to postpone the match and we asked the highest bodies of FIBA to set a new date for the match when we are sure that our team will not be exposed to any risk during the trip to Lithuania," the Secretary General finished his statement.
The two teams were supposed to fly together to Lithuania on the same flight, but only the Lithuanians will return to their homeland today. The teams are waiting for a decision from FIBA - the game is either going to be postponed, or a technical loss will be handed to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Lithuanian national team achieved a nail-biting victory last evening over the Bosnians, led by 18 points from Osvaldas Olisevicius who made the game-winning jumper with 14 seconds to go in the 4th quarter.
The two teams were supposed to meet again on Sunday, this time in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. The match was scheduled to play at 18:30 CET.
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