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LONDON – When Brittney Griner, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart take to the basketball court Monday for their opening game of the Paris Olympics, they’ll be looking to extend a winning streak that began before most of them were born.
The United States’ women’s national basketball team is undefeated at the Olympics since 1992. Every member of the team has already won either an Olympic gold medal, or a World Cup gold, in the past. Together they’re seeking an eighth straight Olympic gold – and tenth overall.
LeBron James may have been Team USA’s flag bearer at Friday’s opening ceremony. But it’s the American women who sit atop one of most winning dynasties in the history of basketball – or any other sport.
But some big names were left off the U.S. squad this year. And because the Olympics fall smack in the middle of the WNBA season, those who did make the team have had little time to practice together.
Other countries have meanwhile been sending more athletes to the WNBA, playing alongside the U.S. women, studying their absolute dominance on the basketball court – and trying to catch up.
All of those things could come together to threaten one of the longest gold medal streaks in Olympic history.
How not to feel the pressure of history
Asked how she keeps her players grounded, when success has come so easily to them, U.S. head coach Cheryl Reeve says: “You can’t escape history.”
“We’re standing on this amazing culture that was built a long, long time ago. So I think we’re aware of that,” Reeve told reporters in London last week, after winning an exhibition game against Germany there, 84 to 57. “But I think it’s also really important that this journey is unique and special to this group. This is our first experience together.”
It’s a first for this particular combination of players. The squad includes first-time Olympians Sabrina Ionescu, Kahleah Copper and Alyssa Thomas. The other nine have all been Olympians before. At 42, Diana Taurasi makes history as the oldest woman in USA basketball history to compete at the Olympics.
If you think two-time gold medalist LeBron James is impressive, still playing basketball at age 39, on the same Los Angeles Lakers team as his son, consider Taurasi: She’s three years older than James. She has five Olympic gold medals, and is going for a sixth.
“I’m not going to the Olympics as a farewell tour. I’m going trying to win a gold medal with my teammates. That’s the only reason I play basketball,” she told NPR. “So I feel just the same as my first one. My back’s a little more sore though!”
Griner’s first trip abroad since her Russia ordeal
The U.S. squad also includes six-foot-nine Griner, who can dunk. Paris is her third Olympics. But it’s her first trip abroad since being held captive in Russia for 10 months.
She’d been traveling back and forth to Russia, playing in the EuroLeague, when in 2022, two vape cartridges with doctor-prescribed cannabis oil were found in her luggage. Griner was convicted on drug charges, sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony – but then freed in a prisoner swap.
Griner spoke to NPR this spring about her mental health struggles since then. She’s also written a memoir, Coming Home, recounting mental and physical abuse while in Russian custody.
She remained on the bench for last week’s exhibition game against Germany. But Reeve told reporters Griner is “completely fine,” and will play in the Olympics.
Teammate A’ja Wilson says players are trying to support Griner through her trauma.
“We’re just going to always be her sisters,” Wilson told reporters in response to a question from NPR. “We are just trying to be around her and just help her and hug her. I’m grateful to be her teammate again.”
Ever heard of Caitlin Clark?
One player who’s absent from the Olympics is the NCAA’s all-time top scorer, now an WNBA rookie – who’s been credited with boosting the league’s popularity. There may be a so-called “Caitlin Clark Effect” – but the Indiana Fever player didn’t make the Olympic team.
“You do have some of these newer fans coming out and saying, ‘Well if they lose, it’s because Caitlin Clark wasn’t on this team,’” says Lindsey Darvin, a sports management professor at Syracuse University. “But that definitely would not be the case.”
Darvin says Clark is fresh out of college, has only played half a WNBA season, and “just isn’t one of the top 12 players in the U.S. yet.”
Clark also wasn’t able to attend any USA Basketball training camps this year, because she was playing in the Final Four, taking her team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, to the NCAA Division I championship in April. (They lost to South Carolina.)
“People who have just heard of a few players like Caitlin Clark, they’re then surprised that she’s not in the squad, because she’s their introduction to the game,” says Richard Cohen, a British journalist who covers the WNBA. “But to those of us who follow it closely, she was probably never getting in.”
Another player missing from the Olympic roster
Analysts say it’s an even bigger surprise that Arike Ogunbowale isn’t on the roster. She was named MVP of this year’s WNBA all-stars – a team that beat this Olympic squad earlier this month. Ogunbowale was the top scorer in that game.
After being passed over for the team four years ago, Ogunbowale attended training camps this year – but then took her name out of the running, decrying the selection process as political.
“I just wasn’t feeling like they really wanted me on that team. So I just removed myself,” she told ESPN earlier this month.
Darvin, the Syracuse professor, says Team USA’s loss to Clark and Ogunbowale’s WNBA all-stars was a “wake-up call.”
“When you’re a team that’s dominated for so long, you don’t take everyone as seriously as you should,” she says. “So I think that was a good opportunity for them to take step back and say, ‘OK, we are beatable.’”
That could be a threat at the Paris Olympics as well.
What the competition looks like
Team USA’s Olympic opener is against Japan in Lille, France on Monday (9pm local; 3pm ET). The two teams met in the gold-medal game in Tokyo three years ago. The U.S. won that game 90 to 75.
Before arriving in France, the U.S. women had just three days to practice together, in Phoenix, during the WNBA all-star weekend.
By contrast, Japan has been preparing for Monday’s game for about a year. Other countries have been practicing together full-time for the past month.
“The world is catching up. One of the best teams is the French, who obviously have home court advantage. Canada are getting better. China look good,” says Cohen, the British WNBA reporter. “The U.S. remains the most dominant, and the favorite. But there’s a lot of pressure on them.”
“You win that much, and the first person to lose is going to be remembered as the person who ended this dynasty,” he says.
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