French basketball legend Tony Parker steered 'Les Bleus' to the final qualifying place at Rio 2016 with a virtuoso performance on Sunday (10 July).

France defeated Canada 83-74 in the final of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Manila, with Parker scoring 26 points in the match. Joining France in Rio are Croatia and Serbia, who on Saturday emerged as champions of the two other qualifying tournaments in Turin and Belgrade respectively.

As well as Parker, big names such as Milos Teodosic and Bogdan Bogdanovic, from Serbia, Dario Saric, from Croatia, and Frenchmen Boris Diaw and Nicolas Batum are now set to light up the Rio 2016 basketball competition.

In Manila, France led by just 39-36 at half-time, before Parker turned on the style. The 34-year-old NBA veteran scored 20 of his game-high 26 points in the second half. He also recorded four assists, four rebounds, one steal and three three-pointers.

Team-mate Nando De Colo proved solid support, with 22 points. De Colo was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament in Manila, where he averaged 17.2 points per game.

On Saturday in the Belgrade tournament, home nation Serbia swept aside Puerto Rico 108-77 to qualify for Rio 2016. This will be the first Olympic Games for the Serbian men's national team as an independent country; at Athens 2004 the team represented Serbia and Montenegro.

"This is something I have dreamt about for a long time and finally we have succeeded," captain Milos Teodosic said. "We made it, we are going to Rio. We need to keep going, we will keep practising to be able to play like this in Rio."

 Bogdan Bogdanovic steered Serbia to a crushing victory over Puerto Rico (Photo: FIBA)

Serbia's Balkan neighbours Croatia have also booked their place in Rio. In a dramatic final to the tournament in Turin, the Croats needed overtime to defeat hosts Italy 84-78. Dario Saric, named Most Valuable Player of the tournament, scored 18 points. Bojan Bogdanovic hit a three-pointer with 1:14 left in overtime to help Croatia return to the Games for the first time since Beijing 2008.

Forward Darko Planinic, who came off the bench to score 13 points, said: "this game was very tough for us because Italy is a very good team especially here on their home court. But we believed in ourselves, in our defensive and offensive qualities and I think in the end we showed it. It was a team win."

Draw and schedule finalised

Following the completion of the match in Manila, the draw for the group stage of the Rio 2016 was completed. France and Serbia join the USA, Venezuela, Australia and China in group A. Croatia go into group B, joining Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Lithuania and Nigeria.

The group phases will be played in a round-robin format (each team plays the other five in its group), with the top four teams in each group proceeding to the knock-out phase, which consists of quarter-finals, semi-finals, bronze medal games and gold medal games.

Carioca Arena 1 in Barra Olympic Park is the basketball venue for Rio 2016. The basketball competition will run for almost the entire duration of the Olympic Games, beginning on 6 August, the day after the opening ceremony, and finishing with the men’s podium deciders on 21 August, the day of the closing ceremony.

See the full schedule and results for basketball at Rio 2016

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Rio2016.com is not an absolute authority on qualification for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is an ongoing process. Final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games). The qualification systems are defined by each sport’s respective International Federation and the International Olympic Committee or International Paralympic Committee, and are subject to change. When an athlete or team wins a quota place for their nation, the final decision on whether this ‘slot’ is used and which athletes are sent is taken by the respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee (NOC or NPC). Even when athletes win a ‘nominal’ place for themselves, NOCs/NPCs may have to decide who to send if the number of qualified athletes from one country exceeds the quota.