Team USA has won its seventh consecutive gold medal in women’s basketball!
On Sunday at Saitama Super Arena, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi became the first Olympic basketball players, man or woman, to win five gold medals in the sport. The 12-player U.S. squad defeated Japan 90-75 and finished first in the tournament while Japan made its first appearance in an Olympic final and won silver.
Bird’s fiancée Megan Rapinoe, who won bronze with USWNT, was in the stands proudly cheering on the team.
“Sue and D, what they’ve done for USA basketball is extremely special. The fact that they’re going for five straight golds is insane and I think for the rest of us as players, we want to make sure we put them in the best possible position to get that gold,” Breanna Stewart, who is Bird’s fellow Seattle Storm teammate and now two-time Olympic gold medalist, said prior to the game.
“I think everybody here wants to win gold for [Bird and Taurasi], for us, for everybody that started this streak and got us here,” said Brittany Griner, also now a two-time Olympic gold medalist. “I mean, there’s a lot of different reasons why we want to win this gold medal. So I think you’re going to see some really good basketball in that gold medal game.”
A’ja Wilson, who celebrated her 25th birthday on Saturday, was 8 years old when Bird and Taurasi won their first gold — now Wilson is an Olympic gold medalist alongside the dominant duo.
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“This Olympics I’m pretty sure will be the hardest. Right away within a couple of days, you’re already in knockout rounds and that’s probably from a U.S. standpoint to be honest because a lot of these teams they train,” the WNBA icon explained. “We used to use pool play as our training because we didn’t really have practice time. So from one game to the next we were just hoping to get better come the quarterfinals. And all of a sudden I feel like we blinked and we were in the quarterfinals. So it’s a good sign that we’re playing better now, but yes, this makes it harder for us.”
In Japan, Team USA defeated Nigeria, Japan and France in group play. Then in the quarterfinal round they took down rival Australia before winning against Serbia in the semifinal.
To learn more about Team USA, visitTeamUSA.org. Watch the Tokyo Olympics now on NBC.
source: people.com
