Diana Taurasi wrote herself into historical past after incomes her sixth Olympic gold medal within the U.S. ladies’s basketball workforce’s 67-66 win over France on Sunday, however she didn’t precisely play herself into it.
Taurasi, who surpassed former American teammate Sue Fowl for many gold medals in Olympic basketball historical past, was benched for everything of the title match. The 42-year-old sat and watched her teammates assist clinch this system’s historic eighth consecutive Olympic gold on the Paris Video games, with A’ja Wilson and Kahleah Copper placing collectively environment friendly performances in opposition to a pesky French facet.
After the win, Taurasi was requested the way it felt to one-up Fowl and change into Crew USA’s reigning chief in Olympic basketball gold medals.
“Yeah, it’s the one motive I got here,” Taurasi stated. “It’s humorous trigger we scored the identical quantity of factors at present.”
Me: How did it really feel to at least one up your bestie Sue Fowl, you could have yet another gold medal than her now?
Diana Taurasi: Yeah it’s the one motive I got here. It’s humorous trigger we scored the identical quantity of factors at present.
💀💀💀
— Lindsay Schnell (@Lindsay_Schnell) August 11, 2024
Although Taurasi didn’t get any time on the court docket on Sunday, her veteran presence was unmatched this match. Since Taurasi’s Olympic debut within the 2004 Athens Video games, she has received each sport on the Olympics that she’s competed in (44 of Crew USA’s present record-setting 61-game win streak). She is the one American basketball participant, males’s or ladies’s, to play in six Olympics, not to mention earn six gold medals.
Regardless of Taurasi’s storied legacy, many followers on social media nonetheless puzzled if Crew USA would have been higher off bringing a youthful playmaker, reminiscent of Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark, to compete in Paris.
Taurasi, the WNBA’s all-time main scorer with 10,447 profession factors and counting with the Phoenix Mercury, beforehand confirmed that the 2024 Paris Olympics will probably be her final Video games. Simply as she eclipsed Fowl chasing down the all-time Olympic basketball gold medal file this summer season, somebody will probably be chasing her, now.