Tokyo Olympics: US women’s basketball wins gold

[ad_1]

SAITAMA from Japan

Fifty-five.

It started with a rebound, a recovery from a loss to leave Barcelona with a bronze medal.

That victory turned into a streak in Atlanta, with Dawn Staley becoming the heart of a team of legends as a point guard.

By the end of those games, it was nine in a row, with American players picking up the gold.

In Australia, they won eight more, with the winning streak growing as rapidly as their emerging athletic footprint in America. In Athens, with new blood like Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird on the list, they won eight more.

Over the next 17 years, they stacked wins and golds, building an unstoppable dynasty at the Olympics, the surest bet there is. Staley’s two-game winning streak built in 1996?

He had risen to 54 absurd games by the time of Sunday’s Olympics.

And to celebrate victory # 55, they received gold.

We saved our best performance for our last performance, said Staley, now the teams coach.

For the seventh consecutive Olympics, no one was better in the women’s basketball tournament, with the Americans undefeated and mostly undisputed as they routed Japan 90-75 on Sunday morning.

Brittney Griner scored 30, Aja Wilson 19 and the Americans were never threatened en route to another dominant performance, with the Team USA program icons returning to the field as champions.

Brittney Griner takes a selfie with her US basketball teammates after winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The victory closes one of the most prolific chapters in American athletic history, with Bird and Taurasi leaving the international stage after five Olympics and five gold medals.

No one has accomplished the feat in sport. Their success in the field was only surpassed by their influence there.

Did they really do it five times? Wilson asked. It makes you want to come back and keep giving and building for the next generation.

Taurasi is perhaps considered the best basketball player of all time, a follower of Kobe Bryant who won at every level she competed at.

Battling injuries to compete in Tokyo, Taurasi has always shown his characteristic combination of skill and swagger. And Bird, even at 40, still bounces off the ground like an overly caffeinated pinball machine, an inexhaustible source of energy while running the team across the ground.

She pioneered the game, worked at the front office with the Denver Nuggets, and helped champion women’s sports with her partner, American football star Megan Rapinoe.

Fittingly, the game opened with Bird hitting a jumper.

Replacing pillars without tearing down a structure is usually complicated, but the American basketball machine has continued to produce stars, with the United States playing with unmatched size, aggressiveness, and skill compared to the rest of the world.

Monday in Japan is a national holiday called Yama no Hi Mountain Day. A day before celebrating the size and majesty of Mt. Fuji, the Japanese had to try to score on Griner and Mt. Wilson.

It’s our game upside down, Wilson said of her and Griners’ success.

At the start of the final, Japans Himawari Akaho, a 6-foot-1 forward, attempted to pass the Griner by 6-foot-9, with the American center easily kicking the ball out of bounds, left shaking his head at the audacity of the Japan to try it.

Later in the first quarter, as if to remind everyone that she’s more than a fat body, Griner confidently swung a midrange jumper with the Japanese unable to stop her from sinking. move away from the basket as well.

Tokyo Olympic Games coverage

Her 30 points were the most scored by an American in a gold medal game. And then there was Wilson, the reigning WNBA’s Most Valuable Player, raising his hands to the sky and holding the ball like it was a toy she kept away from a toddler.

She bounced off oversized and undersized defenders for flipping riders or, at times, just walked through them. The two greats, alongside Breanna Stewart and her upside down skills, are expected to be the centerpieces of American women’s basketball in international competitions in the future.

Japan, to their credit, did their part to make the final entertaining despite the obvious physical lags. The Japanese team used their speed and cunning to find open seams with backdoor cuts in the half court while trying to keep the turbo button pressed throughout the pitch.

But the optical contrasts told the story, never better than when 5-foot-3 goalkeeper Rui Machida stepped under a Griner screen literally passing under Griner, rushing to crawl between the center legs.

[ad_2]