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PARIS – It wasn’t nice basketball. But it surely didn’t must be. It was simply sufficient.

Led by A’Ja Wilson, who scored 21 factors, the U.S. ladies’s staff beat France on Sunday, 67-66, changing into the primary basketball staff in Olympic historical past to win eight consecutive gold medals. The U.S. has now received 61 video games in a row on the Summer time Video games courting again to 1992.

This win didn’t include the benefit with which this staff usually performs, with the Individuals repeatedly examined by the tenacious French staff and an enormous pro-French crowd at Bercy Enviornment. They have been handled to a heart-stopping second with France star Gabby Williams sinking a long-range jumper on the buzzer. However the shot was dominated a two-pointer, not a 3, giving the U.S. a one-point win.

“It was just a little bit ugly. However it doesn’t matter what whether or not it’s good, ugly, no matter we simply wish to come out on prime, and we did that, and we go residence with this gold,” Breanna Stewart informed reporters afterwards.

The primary half of the sport was extremely disjointed, with the U.S. seeming unable to search out any offensive rhythm in opposition to a really bodily French protection. France briefly took the lead, 25-23 proper earlier than halftime, however the U.S. fired again and was capable of tie it proper earlier than the buzzer, bringing it to a 25-25 tie on the half.

When play resumed, the U.S. didn’t rating till greater than three minutes into the quarter. At one level they trailed by as many as ten factors.

“We had a tough time attending to our identification of having the ability to play and transition and rating,” mentioned U.S. ladies’s basketball coach Cheryl Reeve. “We have been the 2 finest defensive groups within the match, and we each confirmed that. It was ugly, nevertheless it was ugly for a purpose. We each made it onerous for one another.”

Guard Jackie Younger, who has been a key scorer for the usteam within the quarterfinals and semifinals, fouled out within the fourth quarter. However not earlier than the U.S. rallied with key three-pointers and free throws by Kelsey Plum.

It was France’s first look within the Olympic gold medal basketball recreation because the 2012 Video games in London, when the U.S. beat France by 36 factors. With Sunday’s loss, France wins the silver medal and Australia claimed bronze by beating Belgium within the third-place recreation.

Brittney Griner, who was competing internationally for the primary time since was freed in a prisoner swap 20 months in the past with Russia, mentioned that upon profitable, her feelings have been “everywhere” in the course of the medal ceremony following the sport.

“I used to be on the rostrum, flag was going up, as quickly because the anthem began tears began coming down my face,” Griner mentioned. “I didn’t suppose I’d be right here, like I mentioned earlier than, after which to be right here, profitable gold for my nation, representing when my nation fought so onerous for me to even be standing right here. This gold medal’s gonna maintain a particular place amongst the opposite two I used to be lucky to win.”

It was an enormous basketball weekend for the U.S., with each the boys’s and girls’s basketball groups dealing with host France for gold medals.

In the future earlier the U.S. males’s staff held off France, 98-87 to win its fifth-straight Olympic gold. The lads’s staff went 6-0 within the Paris Video games and received gold.