Paris (AFP) – The US women’s basketball team ride a 59-game Olympic winning streak into their semi-final showdown with Australia on Friday, eyeing two more for a record-setting eighth straight Olympic gold medal.
“We didn’t come this far to go home,” two-time WNBA Most Valuable Player A’ja Wilson said after the Americans ended Nigeria’s fairytale run in the quarter-finals. “We’re slowly starting to get our legs under us and (improve) the chemistry. We’re starting to grow together,” Wilson said. That’s an ominous sign for Australia, but Opals coach Sandy Brondello, who coaches US stars Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu at the WNBA’s New York Liberty, says the Australians won’t be intimidated.
“Most of us play in the WNBA,” Brondello said. “We face these players day in, day out. They’re humans. They’re basketball players. Anything can happen at one time. You have got to believe it. It’s got to be a positive mind set, knowing on any given day you can come out, and you can beat them… we’ve got to go in with the mindset that they have to stop us, as well.”
US coach Cheryl Reeve says her players are laser-focused on their Paris mission and not on the fact that a victory would see them break a tie with the US men’s basketball team, who won seven straight Olympic titles from 1936-68. During the women’s gold rush, launched at the 1996 Atlanta Games, the Australians have come up with silver against them three times — in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
Looking for their first medal since earning bronze in London in 2012, Australia have been building momentum since a shock loss to Nigeria in their Olympic opener. “It’s taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get here, so we’ve still got a lot of fight in us,” Aussie forward Alanna Smith said.
France and Belgium booked a semi-final meeting with dominant quarter-final victories. European champions Belgium are in the semi-finals for the first time while France are hoping a raucous home crowd can carry them through to a chance to improve on the bronze medal they won at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games three years ago. “Both teams know each other’s coaches, all the players,” France coach Jean-Aime Toupane said. “It’s going to be a big battle and hopefully we’re going to take it.”
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