New Zealand took care of the easy part, securing a spot at next year's Beijing Olympics with a 118-31 win over Fiji at the Oceania women's basketball championships in Dunedin last night.
Now they face a much tougher challenge - convincing the New Zealand selectors they are capableof progressing to the Olympic quarterfinals, as they did in Athens three years ago.
"We're delighted," coach Mike McHugh said.
"Basketball is played in 213 countries and only 12 teams get to the Olympics.
"To qualify is quite a thrill and I'm sure the players will be excited about it too.
"What we must do now, if we get there, is to put on a performance that Kiwis will be proud of."
While South Pacific champions Fiji were again gallant in defeat, as they were against Australian the previous night, the result was probably a foregone conclusion.
New Zealand centre Jess McCormack opened the scoring when she converted one of two from the line, then made both when given another opportunity seconds later.
By the time Seini Dobui put Fiji's first points on the board midway through the opening quarter, New Zealand were already in double figures.
"Our focus was on trying to have quality about what we did, that there was good execution of skills and good execution of our system," McHugh said.
"The scoreline was irrelevant - we tried to play as we would against Australia and not lower our performance because of the opponent."
New Zealand were to take on Australia in the final today, desperate to improve on their previous performance against them when they lost 48-76 in the round-robin match on Wednesday.
