Paris 2024 Olympics: The French basketball team narrowly loses to the United States and wins the silver medal

Les Bleues décrochent la médaille d'argent. MAXPPP – CAROLINE BREHMAN

Heroic in defense, admirable in self-sacrifice and talent, the French basketball team on Sunday achieved the immense feat of beating the Americans in the Olympic final, undefeated in the competition since 1992 and crowned in pain (67-66) for the eighth time in a row.
 

Twelve years after their first Olympic podium, the Bleues are adorned in Bercy once again with silver, which should however have a much more bitter taste than in London.

Where the "Braqueuses&quot of Céline Dumerc had exploded in the final (86-50), the teammates of the "masked avenger" Sarah Michel Boury, the captain who has been wearing face protection since a big blow received in the group stage, looked the American queens eye to eye, and sometimes even head to head.

They came very close to inflicting their first defeat at the Olympics since 1992 (a setback in the semi-finals against the CEI) and the first in a major competition since 2006 (semi-finals of the World Cup). The Americans' streak of 60 straight victories hung by a thread.

The overtime only lasted less than a meter: Gabby Williams (19 pts, 7 rebounds and 3 interceptions), who carried the Blue at arm's length at the start and end of the match, scored at the buzzer, but was inside the arc (66-67). The epilogue of a crazy end to the match, in an incandescent Bercy, where the French almost made up for a four-point deficit 11 seconds from time.

Kelsey Plum, the player of the match on the American side (12 pts) with Aja Wilson (21 pts and 13 rebounds), scored her two free throws, before Williams, already her, maintained the lead. ;hope for a winning shot five seconds from the siren (64-65). Kahleah Cooper then did not tremble on the penalty line (64-67), before Williams' magnificent, but ultimately vain, shot.

The Tears of Williams

The Franco-American woman couldn't hold back her tears while the American women exulted, happy and probably also relieved after being so close to the correctional facility.

At the end of the tightest final in the history of the women's tournament, a match that the French took on the defensive field, the only one where they had a chance of achieving one of the greatest feats in French sport. And probably world sport.

Jean-Aimé Toupane's players, heroic in defense, where the many interiors took turns to deliver an epic battle, completely thwarted Diana Taurasi's Americans, who won a 6th gold medal, a record in team sports, men and women combined.

They only scored 66 points while they had averaged nearly 90 points since the start of the tournament, scattering all their opponents, more or less with their elbow on the door.

They had scored 45 points at halftime against Australia (85-64) ? The score was 25-25 at halftime, where Breanna Stewart and her teammates displayed poor shooting (8/28 including 0/3 at 3 pts) and 13 lost balls.

Diana's tribe

Nervous, approximate (loss of the ball by Chelsea Gray, 18th, pass by Kelsey Plum in touch, 26th), feverish near the basket where they committed unusual misses, blocked on the outside perimeter, they needed all their experience, their talent and their malice mixed with toughness, to get out of it.

They leave the Blues to their immense regrets, they who said before their match that they believed hard as iron in the impossible.

At the end of the three seasons of Jean-Aimé Toupane's mandate, started in pain with heavy defeats at the fall-winter 2021-2022, followed by a frustrating 2022 World Cup (elimination in the quarter-finals with a weakened team) and a failed Euro 2023, finished in 3rd place while a third championship title (after 2001 and 2009) was targeted.

Toupane, a man of the inner circle with no experience in women's basketball, was appointed after the bronze at the 2021 Olympics to replace Valérie Garnier to help the French women take a step forward and compete with the Americans.

Less than 24 hours after the Blues held their own against the “Avengers” American (87-98), its players did much more than that, concluding with a new silver in the Olympic tournaments which confirms the excellent health of French basketball.