After six years' waiting, Asian traditional powerhouse Chinese men's basketball team finally took the Asian title back after beating Jordan 70-69 in Sunday's FIBA Asia Championship final in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province.

China directly qualified for London Olympics.

The host team lost shooting guard Wang Shipeng and small forward Zhou Peng before the tournament. Though China had three easy wins in the preliminary round, criticism still went to them as China didn't perform an expected high-level. But China head coach Robert Donewald insisted that the real championship for China would just start after six group matches and they needed not to perform their best right then.

The team didn't let Donewald down. They qualified to the quarterfinals after finishing in first place with an unbeaten 6-0 record. China tightened its defense in final round and even kept rival South Korea only making one three-pointer from 20 attempts in semifinal.

Yi Jianlian of Washington Wizards became the new leader of Chinese team as he took 16.6 points and 10.8 rebounds per game, which both are team-high. Yi Jianlian was rewarded the MVP title after China winning the final.

Wang Zhizhi is the second highest scorer of China with 11.4 points. The veteran played important role while China met obstacles.

The last time China won Asian Championship was in Qatar, 2005. They only got 10th place in 2007 as they didn't send the best team to Japan. In 2009, China lost to Iran in the final in Tianjin.

China even missed the chance to revenge twice defending champion Iran, who failed to make into the semifinals as they were narrowly defeated by tournament dark horse Jordan at 88-84. Iran finished 5th at the final standing.

The defeat meant that Iran would not appear in London. Only the Asian champion will qualify to London directly while the runner-up and bronze medalist have to play in next year's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament against strong opponents as European powerhouse Russia, Greece and so on.

South Korea came from behind to edge out the Philippines 70-68 in the bronze medal match.

Dual nationality issue

Tournament leading scorer Marcus Douthit of Philippines had 21.9 points per game. He also topped the rebounders standing with 110 rebounds from 9 matches, which is 12.2 per game for him. Rasheim Wright led Jordan with 19.2 points per game and Monn Tae-Jong led South Korea with 13.3 points per games.

All these players have one thing in common that they have dual nationality. Douthit was born in New York in 1980 and became a naturalized Filipino citizen in March, 2011, thus allowing him to play for Philippines at this Asian Championship. Wright was born in Philadelphia, United States and received a Jordanian citizenship in 2007. 36-year-old Moon Tae-Jong, whose name used be Jarod Stevenson, is a Korean-American mestizo.

Qatar, who ranked 6th in Tianjin 2009, got the final place among all 16 teams as they had five players denied for the entry with dual nationality issues before the tournament started. Coach Ali Fakhroo told his players to foul out as quick as possible to express unhappiness.

Qatar played three group matches and then just left China and might be fines by FIBA Asia after the tournament.

Dual nationality players also made Jordan coach Thomas Baldwin furious during the match against Philippines. He was told that two Philippines players couldn't get on court due to nationality problems 15 minutes before the match. However, the official gave the permission to the two players seven minutes into the game. Philippines rallied from a 9-point behind to a 72-64 win, which puzzled both sides.

"Dual nationality players might brought benefits to the team in s short period," said Yao Ming, retired Chinese center, "But it hurts the sport and the young players of the nation. It is just a bogus boom."