Spain, the men's basketball world champion, has been fully prepared for the Beijing Olympics with a stunning clean sweep in the seven warm-up matches.
The star-studded team began a two-day rest on Thursday and will travel to China on Sunday. The last warm-up was a crushing 107-57 win over Latvia on Wednesday night.
No fewer than six Spanish players scored over 10 points as the Spaniards sent out a warning that they aim to build on their 2006 World Championships win and 2007 European silver medal.
Although Spain have won seven games out of seven, coach Aito Garcia Reneses stressed that the results were not the most important thing in preparation.
"Preparation is important to learn concepts and to put them in practice: results are not so vital. We have played all of our games at home with the support of our fans behind us and in Beijing we won't have all of that support," Reneses told the Spanish Basketball Federation website on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, the Spain coach was pleased with the way things had been going for his players.
"We are starting to learn the good habits that I hope we will develop in Beijing. The most important thing was for us to maintain concentration for all 40 minutes of the game without looking at the score. We would not have been as good without that extra bit of concentration."
"I am very satisfied and I hope that these two days of rest will allow the players who have knocks or small injuries to recover and for us all to be prepared to compete in the Olympics," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 1, 2008)