SANTO DOMINGO (FIBA AmeriCup 2017) - The FIBA AmeriCup Trophy Tour visited Santo Domingo on Thursday with the Centrobasket U17 Championship as backdrop. The AmeriCup Trophy was presented at a press conference to the basketball family, members of the media and potential partners in the country.

The Dominican Republic will participate in Group C of the FIBA AmeriCup 2017 to be played from August 28-30 at the Palacio Peñarol in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay, where the National Team will face Panama, USA and Uruguay.

The FIBA AmeriCup 2017, the premier international basketball championship of the Americas, will be played in four cities (Medellin, Bahia Blanca, Montevideo and Cordoba) and will feature the best 12 national teams from the continent. In addition to the Group C participants, Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico and host Colombia will participate in Group A in Medellín, while Group B will be held in Bahía Blanca, with the participation of Canada, Virgin Islands, Venezuela and Argentina.

The winning team from each group, and Argentina, who will advance as main organizer, will play the Semi-Finals and Finals of the competition in Cordoba on September 2 and 3.

The press conference, which took place in the Salón de Prensa del Ministerio de Deportes de Santo Domingo, was attended by the President of the Dominican Republic’s Basketball Federation, Mr. Rafael Uribe and the President of the International Basketball Federation in the Americas, Mr. Usie Richards, among other authorities of the country.

"The FIBA AmeriCup 2017 Trophy Tour seeks to promote and publicize our new competition across the continent." Said FIBA Americas President Usie Richards. "The FIBA AmeriCup, a new and repositioned event that will feature our top 12 national teams, will crown the Champion of the Americas, and will do so without forgetting the great history of our continental basketball, which has allowed us to grow. It is an honor to visit an elite basketball country as the Dominican Republic. This welcome speaks of the commitment that FEDOMBAL has to the country and the commitment it has made to the development of our sport.”

"It is a privilege for us to receive the FIBA AmeriCup 2017 trophy in the Dominican Republic. Our national team is about to begin its participation in what will be a new era in basketball, that will begin with this tournament that we will play in Montevideo at the end of August. It is the first of two big events that the team will face, since in November we will be participating in the Qualifiers to the FIBA Basketball World Cup, where we will play at home, against a North American team (Canada), for the first time in 12 years. We are excited about what the future of basketball in our country holds,” said Rafael Uribe, President of the Dominican Republic’s Basketball Federation.

"Having this beautiful trophy in front of us is a great temptation. We do not want to let it go. The Ministerio de Deportes y Recreación of the Dominican Republic is in the greatest willingness to support all the great work that the Dominican Republic’s Basketball Federation does with our National Team and we wish you the greatest success in the AmeriCup and in the next commitments that will happen this year, in which we will be able to see our team playing at home. This is all a luxury for our country. "Said Danilo Díaz Vizcaíno, Minister of Sports and Recreation of the Dominican Republic.

The newly inaugurated FIBA AmeriCup 2017 Trophy is "founded in history," with a new form and feel inspired by an evolution of previous trophies handed down through the history of the continental competition. It has a map of the Americas engraved on the interior and exterior surface, as well as all the Continental Champions from the 1980-2015 editions.

The new AmeriCup Trophy will be handed for the first time on September 3 to the Champion of the Americas in Cordoba, Argentina.

For more information and the most complete coverage of the FIBA AmeriCup 2017, visit fiba.com/AmeriCup and follow @FIBA on social networks.

FIBA