The Philippines won the first Asian Games basketball gold medal in 61 years. It was possible because the whole nation was crazy about basketball.

The Philippines beat Jordan 70-60 to win the gold medal in the men's basketball final at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games held at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium in China on the 6th.

The Philippines' Asian Games gold medal came 61 years after the 1962 Jakarta Games. At that time, the Philippines won four consecutive Asian Games and reigned as Asia's dominant power. The Philippines has won five times in total, ranking second most after China, which has won eight times. Korea is third with four wins (Bangkok in 70 years, New Delhi in 82 years, Busan in 2002 and Incheon in 2014).

The winners of the Philippines were two naturalized players, Justin Brownlee (35) and Ange Cuame (26). In the final, Brownlee was active with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. Kuame also backed up with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Brownlee scored eight consecutive points, including the final three-point shot at the end of the semifinals against China, and achieved a miraculous come-from-behind victory.

The Olympic Council of Asia previously allowed only one naturalized athlete to participate. Even he had a clue that he had to live in the country for more than three years. Philippines push for Andrei Vlache's participation in 2014 Incheon Games It was the reason for the failure.

Brownlee, who was born in the U.S., played as a foreign player in the PBA and was considered recruiting for a long time by the KBL club. Kuame, naturalized from Ivory Coast, is 211 centimeters tall. How did the two players play for the Philippines national team at the same time.

A Philippine basketball official who met at the Basketball World Cup in September said in an interview with OSEN, "OCA will no longer consider the three-year residence requirement and will recognize the player's qualification if the country has a passport. The president of the Philippine Basketball Association met with OCA chairman and held talks, he said.

The Philippines, where basketball is the national flag, put its life and death on the gold medal. According to the national sentiment, it is most important that the most popular sports basketball does well even if it does not do all other sports. So even the political circle has pledged to win the gold medal for the national basketball team. In this tournament, the Philippines won four gold medals. There was no other sport that made more headlines than basketball.

The Filipinos are crazy about basketball. Although there are many workers in the Philippines whose monthly salary is less than 300,000 won, most of the people agree to pay hundreds of millions of won to naturalized players. As such, the Philippines has a public consensus on recruiting naturalized players. It is a country where even the sports minister directly passes documents for naturalized athletes.

Jordan, the final opponent of the Philippines, also played as a naturalized player for Rondae Hollis Jefferson, a dual U.S. citizen. Jefferson has also never lived in Jordan for three years. Jefferson was also a Jordanian ace, scoring 24 points in the final. John Bohannon, the 211-centimeter-tall center, is also a dual citizen of the United States and Jordan. Without the two players, Jordan would not have advanced to the finals. 스포츠토토

Ra Gun-ah, who has long been a naturalized player for the Korean national team since special naturalization in 2018, announced his retirement from the national team after the 7th and 8th place match against Japan. The Korea Basketball Association has no alternative to naturalized players after Ra Gun-ah.

The Basketball Association pushed for the special naturalization of "Moon Tae-jong's son," Jaryn Stephenson, but faced difficulties. In order to apply for special naturalization to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, you must have income and submit grades to prove your objective skills. Jaryn Stephenson entered the University of Alabama as the 41st prospect in the U.S. in the 2023 Class ESPN rankings. Student athletes naturally have no income. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism believes there is no basis for NBA prospect Jaryn Stevenson to prove his objective skills.