A’Ja Wilson #9 of Workforce United States shoots between Valeriane Ayayi (L) and Janelle Salaun of Workforce France through the Ladies’s Gold Medal recreation Sunday on the Paris Olympics.
Gregory Shamus/Getty Photos
disguise caption
toggle caption
Gregory Shamus/Getty Photos
NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer time Olympics. For extra of our protection from the Video games head to our newest updates.
PARIS – It wasn’t nice basketball. But it surely didn’t should be. It was simply sufficient.
The U.S. girls’s crew beat France on Sunday, 67-66, turning into the primary basketball crew in Olympic historical past to win eight consecutive gold medals. The U.S. has now gained 61 video games in a row on the Summer time Video games relationship again to 1992.
This win didn’t include the convenience with which this crew usually performs, with the People repeatedly examined by the tenacious French crew and an enormous pro-French crowd at Bercy Enviornment. They have been handled to a heart-stopping second with France star Gabby Williams sinking a long-range jumper on the buzzer. However the shot was dominated a two-pointer, not a 3, giving the U.S. a one-point win.
Kahleah Copper #7 of Workforce United States goes up for a basket through the girls’s gold medal recreation between France and the U.S. on Sunday.
Pool/Getty Photos
disguise caption
toggle caption
Pool/Getty Photos
The primary half of the sport was extremely disjointed, with the U.S. seeming unable to search out any offensive rhythm in opposition to a really bodily French protection. France briefly took the lead, 25-23 proper earlier than halftime, however the U.S. fired again and was in a position to tie it proper earlier than the buzzer, bringing it to a 25-25 tie on the half.
When play resumed, the U.S. didn’t rating till greater than three minutes into the quarter. At one level they trailed by as many as ten factors.
Guard Jackie Younger, who has been a key scorer for the usteam within the quarterfinals and semifinals, fouled out within the fourth quarter. However not earlier than the U.S. rallied with key three-pointers and free throws by Kelsey Plum.
It was France’s first look within the Olympic gold medal basketball recreation because the 2012 Video games in London, when the U.S. beat France by 36 factors. With Sunday’s loss, France wins the silver medal and Australia claimed bronze by beating Belgium within the third-place recreation.
France’s Marine Fauthoux reacts after a 3 level basket through the girls’s gold medal basketball recreation between america and host France.
Gregory Shamus/Getty Photos
disguise caption
toggle caption
Gregory Shamus/Getty Photos
It was a giant basketball weekend for the U.S., with each the lads’s and girls’s basketball groups going through host France for gold medals.
In the future earlier the U.S. males’s crew held off France, 98-87 to win its fifth-straight Olympic gold. The boys’s crew went 6-0 within the Paris Video games and gained gold.