Medal round begins in European championships

It’s down to the final eight at the 2007 EuroBasket Women in Chieti, Italy – and Russia clearly looks like the team to beat.

Igor Grudin's women have progressively gotten better since struggling to beat Italy in their opener and getting surprised by a young Serbian side, and the 2005 European and 2006 World championship silver-medalists – not to mention slayers of the American dragon in Brazil in 2006 – are primed to claim a ticket to Beijing next summer.

Next up for Maria Stepanova and Russia are Lithuania, which limped into the quarters with a late three-point barrage against Turkey to remain alive for the Olympics and the pre-Olympic tournament.

The Russia-Lithuania game is set for Friday and will be followed by the Belgium-Spain matchup. On Thursday, upstart Latvia and superstar Anete Jekabsone-Zogota face off against reeling France, while the defending champion Czech Republic battles a surprising Belarus team, which reached the quarterfinals of their first ever EuroBasket Women competition.

Of course, the winner claims the one automatic berth for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, but the next best four teams will earn invitations to the 12-team pre-Olympic tournament to be held next summer. Five teams from that event will move on, and it’s expected that three, or even four, will come from the EuroBasket field.

But Russia has by far the largest arsenal of weapons in Italy, with the blonde twin towers of Stepanova and Irina Osipova. Ilona Korstin and Oxana Rakhmatulina control the backcourt and Olga Arteshina is out on the wing. And the firepower continues off the bench as wel,l with the likes of former UConn star Svetlana Abrosimova and Tatiana Shchegoleva.

The veteran team has plenty of big-game experience, reaching the EuroBasket Women final in 2005 and knocking off Team USA at the 2006 Worlds in Brazil before falling to Australia in the final.

The 1997 winners, Lithuania, meanwhile have struggled to find any rhythm in this tournament, and it would be a shock if they upset the Russians. But the Baltic nation has some shooters, who if they get hot, could cause some problems. The winner of that game moves into a Saturday semifinal showdown against either Latvia or France, which face off on Thursday.

The Latvians feature probably the tournament's best all-around player in Anete Jekabsone-Zogota, who leads the event in scoring (20.5 points) and assists (4.3) while also averaging 3.2 rebounds, 1.5 steals and just 2.2 turnovers per contest. The Baltic nation also features former Siena stars Gunta Basko and Liene Jansone while ex-Western Illinois University low post presence Zane Teilane has done a great job in the paint.

The French also have loads of talent – talented young post Sandrine Gruda, WNBA vet Edwige Lawson-Wade, Sandra LeDrean and Sandra Dijon among them – and play tremendous defense. But Jacques Commeres's team appears to have bought into the mindset that they are a poor offensive team – and have looked horrible too often.

Thursday's other quarterfinal sees defending champions Czech Republic square off with final eight debutante Belarus. The Czechs have not looked dominant in this tournament, losing to Germany and nearly getting beaten by Belgium. Eva Viteckova, Jana Vesela and Petra Kulichova have been Jan Bobrovsky's main weapons, but a beat-up Hana Machova showed against Belgium that she still thrives under pressure as she took over the fourth quarter on both ends of the court.

But the Czechs have struggled offensively, hitting just 43 percent from the field and just 66 percent from the foul stripe during the tournament. On the other hand, they have been able to average 15 offensive rebounds a game. However, the Czechs cannot look past Belarus, which may not have the international experience but has loads of talented players who have been in some big games before.

Sviatlana Volnaya helped the University of Virginia to the Sweet 16, while Tatyana Troina also reached the Sweet 16 at South Carolina and Natallia Marchanka rewrote the record books at Fairleigh Dickinson. One area Belarus may struggle with is the size disadvantage at the guard position -- though they have loads of athletic forwards to help out defensively.

The final semifinalist – and Czech Republic or Belarus's opponent - will come from the Belgium-Spain encounter. Belgium comes into the quarters highly touted despite losing their last two games to Latvia and Czech Republic, both decided in the final minute. The main reason for Belgium's optimism is superstar center Ann Wauters, who leads the team in points, rebounds and blocked shots and is fourth in assists and steals.

Wauters' main battlefield help, Kathy Wambe, has enjoyed an excellent campaign save for her nightmare showing against the Czechs, in which she collected 13 points, four rebounds and seven assists but missed eight of nine foul shots and apparently did not realize that Belgium were trailing by four points with 12 seconds left in the game. Look for Wambe to bounce back as Laurent Buffard will need his point guard to be at her best. Belgium has averaged a tournament-best 12 turnovers per game, but they will be tested against pesky Spaniards.

Evaristo Pérez's women must win if they want to at least match their showing the last three EuroBasket Women – bronze in 2001, 2003 and 2005. The Spanish attack revolves around Amaya Valdemoro, who leads the team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and three-pointers made.

While the four winners on Thursday and Friday guarantee themselves at least a spot in the Olympic qualifying tournament, the losers must rebound quickly since a victory in Saturday's fifth through eighth classification games will send one of them on to Beijing.