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Olympics-Basketball-Greece beat Puerto Rico to seal Beijing spot

Sat Jul 19, 2008 4:30pm EDT

ATHENS, July 19 (Reuters) - Greece qualified for next month's Beijing Games with a comfortable 88-63 semi-final win over Puerto Rico in the Olympic qualifying tournament on Saturday.

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Puerto Rico will have another chance to qualify when they face Germany, who lost to Croatia in the other semi-final, for the final Beijing spot in Sunday's third place playoff.

Greece, tipped as potential medals winners in Beijing, raced to a 15-4 lead in less than five minutes and never looked back.

Setting a frantic pace in front of a fiery 12,000 home crowd, and coupled with an all-court pressing game, the Greeks stung their opponents on the break while Puerto Rico were made to work hard for their baskets.

Greek centre Sofoklis Schortsianitis, who shed more than 25 kilos halfway through last season, was outstanding in keeping the towering Puerto Rican duo of Peter John Ramos and Daniel Santiago at bay while also scoring 13 points. Puerto Rico's Jose Juan Barea was the game's top scorer with 16.

Angola, Argentina, Australia, China, Iran, Lithuania, Russia, Spain and the United States have already qualified. (Writing by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Rex Gowar) (For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)

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