The US men’s and women’s basketball team have continued their incredible dominance of the sport in the Olympics as they won both the men’s and women’s gold medals at Tokyo 2020. The men’s team played France in the tournament’s final on Saturday and edged it, winning 87-82.
A day later, the women breezed past hosts Japan in the final, winning the game 90-75. The men’s side had a minor hiccup in the group stages as they lost to France in their opening match, but took their performances up several notches after that wake-up call. The women’s team, though, sailed past each of their opponents and won their seventh straight gold medal in the Olympics. The men, meanwhile, have won gold for the fourth straight time.
Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant was named the MVP in men’s basketball, while Seattle Storm’s Breanna Stewart was named the MVP in women’s basketball at Tokyo 2020.
The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo also saw the introduction of another version of basketball – 3×3 basketball. The US women’s 3×3 team won gold here as well, as they defeated the Russian Olympic Committee 18-15 in the final with Stefanie Dolson top-scoring with 7 points. China, meanwhile, won bronze after defeating France 16-14. The US men’s team, though, did not qualify for 3×3 basketball at Tokyo 2020. Latvia won gold in men’s 3×3 basketball as they won a close match against ROC, with Serbia winning bronze.
The United States rules the roost in the overall basketball medals table at the Olympics with 25 gold medals in both men’s and women’s basketball. And with just 7 gold medals, going to other countries, highlighting the incredible supremacy that they have in the sport at the Olympics.
Basketball was first introduced as an Olympics sport in 1936 at the Berlin Games as a men’s sport. The Americans dominated at the start, winning the first seven editions, with the Soviet Union providing the only competition to their dominance. The Soviet Union finally broke the US’s incredible run by winning in the 1972 Olympics, before Yugoslavia emerged as another competitor to the US’s stranglehold of the competition. Only Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Argentina have won the men’s gold in basketball apart from the USA at the Olympics.
By the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada, women competed at the Olympics, and the story was the same as the Americans and the Soviet Union competed for top honors once again. The American women’s team has brushed aside every opponent that has come their way over the last two-and-a-half decades at the Olympics.
