Foreign athletes of the FIBA Basketball World Cup tried popular Filipino snacks during their preparations for the competition’s opening ceremony.
The Philippines is one of the hosts of the 2023 FIBA World Cup, where 32 participating teams will play in 92 games from August 25 to September 10. The other host countries are Japan and Indonesia.
The multinational sports competition will open at 4 p.m. on Friday, August 25. It will be held at the Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan.
The opening match will be between Angola and Italy.
On August 24, FIBA’s social media accounts uploaded a video that showed some athletes trying out and rating popular merienda snacks.
In the video, the athletes from USA and Egypt are seen tasting King ChocNut and Moby Caramel Puffs.
Tyrese “the big peanut chocolate guy” Haliburton 🍫🥜#FIBAWC pic.twitter.com/8pUFGmNFrO
— FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 🏆 (@FIBAWC) August 24, 2023
The players enjoyed the snacks, most of them giving the local favorites a score of 8 over 10.
Only Josh Hart of the US team was not pleased with the ChocNut. He gave it a low 2 out of 10 rating.
Enzo Flojo of the blog@thehoopnut also uploaded photos that showed members of the US basketball team trying out other Filipino merienda staples during their downtime at the court.
The photos showed the US players eating Pinoy barbecue skewers and lumpiang shanghai.
As promised, @usabasketball food shots! pic.twitter.com/hl8jHSk7x8
— Enzo Flojo (@hoopnut) August 24, 2023
The full schedule of the basketball matches can be viewed via FIBA’s official website here FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 – FIBA.basketball.
The national government, meanwhile, pushed for this massive event by offering ticket deals and discounts, free train rides and even limited free tolls for attendees.
READ: Who can avail of LRT-2’s free rides for 2023 FIBA World Cup? |2023 FIBA World Cup: Ticket discounts, freebies basketball fans can avail
Classes in public schools and work in government offices in Metro Manila and in Bulacan were also suspended on Friday in line with the FIBA ceremony.
READ: Classes, gov’t work in Metro Manila, Bulacan suspended on FIBA World Cup opening day