The U.S. men’s basketball team topples France to win its fifth straight Olympic gold

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With a 98-87 win over France in the Olympic title game, the U.S. men’s basketball team has won the gold medal, extending one of the most dominant streaks in international sports.

It is the fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal for Team USA and its 17th in Olympic history. And it may be its most impressive yet, as international basketball has grown more competitive than ever.

Its opponent in the final, France, featured the 20-year-old phenomenon Victor Wembanyama and a half-dozen other current and former NBA players. France gave the U.S. a fight, refusing to be put out of contention until the final buzzer.

The result was a repeat of the last Olympic title game in Tokyo in 2021. In that game, the U.S. defeated France 87-82 to win gold.

But the 2021 gold medal came after a group stage loss to France, Team USA’s only loss in Olympic play in twenty years. This year, the U.S. brought heavyweights to Paris, including three players who have been named NBA league MVP — LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant — and seven players with Olympic experience, the most Olympic veterans the team had featured in decades.

The biggest test to Team USA’s streak had come Thursday in the semifinal match against Serbia, who ultimately won the bronze medal. With three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic at the helm, Serbia led from midway through the first quarter until less than three minutes remained in the game.

In that game, Curry’s nine three-point baskets proved to be the difference. On Saturday, he helped to seal the win with four long balls in the final three minutes. In total, 10 U.S. players scored, four of them in double digits. Curry ended with 24 points.

France leaned mostly on two players: Wembanyama, the willowy 7-foot-4 center who was unanimously named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year in May, along with Guerschon Yabusele, a one-time Boston Celtic. Together, they scored 46 of France’s 87 points.

The French crowd was relentless in its cheers of “allez les bleus” and its jeers of Joel Embiid, the Cameroon-born NBA All-Star who last year rejected the advances of the French national team. As they have throughout the Olympics, they booed Embiid every time he touched the ball.

Since 1992, when the Olympics first allowed active professional players to participate, the U.S. has won a gold medal in every Olympics except 2004, when Argentina won gold and the U.S. settled for bronze.

But international competition has improved dramatically since 1992, when the “Dream Team” won its games by an average of 44 points.

The title game between powerhouse and Olympic host ended up as one of the hottest tickets of the Olympic Games, with VIPs and celebrities filling the stands: French President Emmanuel Macron, U.S. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, former NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Scottie Pippen, the French swimming star Léon Marchand, the retired U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe, the five-time Olympic gold medalist Sue Bird and TV host Jimmy Fallon.

Copyright 2024, NPR

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