U.S. Women's Basketball Makes It Eight Consecutive Olympic Golds After Narrow 67-66 Win Against France

PARIS – Less than 24 hours after the U.S. men’s basketball team defeated France to earn a gold medal, the women have done the same. The U.S. defeated the Olympic hosts, 67-66, on Sunday, marking its eighth consecutive gold medal effort and the 61st consecutive victory in the Olympic Games. And, like the men’s game, the women did the job in dramatic fashion.

The total of 67 points marks the fewest scored by a gold medal winner, the previous low being 74 scored by the U.S. in a victory over Australia for gold in the Olympic Games Athens 2004.

The U.S. women had enjoyed an average margin of victory of 22.3 points over their previous nine gold medal games. Their previous closest gold medal game was won by seven points over Yugoslavia in the Olympic Games Seoul 1988. Just one point was the difference between gold and silver on Sunday.

The last time the French women defeated the Americans was in 1971, also on a Sunday, in the preliminary round of the women’s World Championship.

Paris’ Bercy Arena mustered as much hopeful excitement as it could – one full section was prepped with French flags, wafting in the air-conditioned currents, awaiting the “Allez Les Bleus …” chants of the host country’s hopeful residents. They slung their chants at the American Goliath, the team of gladiators that hadn’t lost a game in the Olympics in 32 years.

The Americans had to overcome the force of the crowd and their own uncharacteristic limitations. The U.S. made just 34% of its shots including 2-for-17 3-point shooting, and committed 19 turnovers that led to 14 France points.

But Goliath was still too big for David. Trailing by three points in the final frantic seconds, a shot by Gabby Williams of France was just inside the 3-point line. After a brief moment before the officials confirmed the 2-point basket, the eighth straight gold medal in women’s basketball was coming back to American soil.

The eighth consecutive gold medal surpassed the record of seven set by the U.S. men’s basketball team from the inaugural tournament in 1936 through 1968.

A’ja Wilson’s 21 points, 13 rebounds, 4 blocks and 1 steal led Team USA as she turned up the intensity in the second half.

Second-half performances from Kelsey Plum and Sabrina Ionescu shifted the tide for the U.S. as they moved the ball into the hands of Wilson and Kahleah Copper, enabling the American offense to shift into a gear that it didn’t have in the first half. Plum’s 12 points included two massive 3-pointers in the third quarter to rally the Americans back from a 10-point deficit, the largest of the game. Ionescu’s three assists were also part of that push to remain within striking distance.

“There were a couple players that we said we're going to need to be able to beat France,” coach Cheryl Reeve said. “And Kahleah Copper was a player that we said we’d need for France.”

Copper, also a force in the second half as the U.S. fought to stay atop the see-sawing score, finished with 12 points, five rebounds, two assists, and two steals.

“I think the gold medal is the standard,” Alyssa Thomas said. “No matter where we are in the world, it's our goal and that's what we came here for.”

Diana Taurasi has met that standard a record sixth time. Her first gold medal came at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, and she’s hit the gold standard in every Olympic Games since then, including the Olympic Games Paris 2024. She’s just the third Olympian all-time to earn six or more gold medals in the same event, and the first American to accomplish the feat.

Brittney Griner didn’t know if she’d ever play basketball again after being in a Russian prison. She was thrust into a swell of anxiety as the team rode a train from Lille, where pool play games were held, to Paris.

“I hadn’t been on the train since I was on the prison train, and there was a little moment of anxiety and just kind of reliving it for a second,” Griner said. “I had a little moment, and I just focused back in, all the little things that I learned from counseling, just grounding myself, and it's been good ever since.”

Now, just 20 months after returning to the United States, Griner is a three-time gold medalist who was in tears after receiving the latest one.

“It means so much to me, to my family, to be here,” Griner said. “My country fought so hard for me to be standing here so, yeah, this gold medal is going to hold a special place in my heart.”

The U.S. women carry the winning tradition out of these Olympic Games – along with the 61-game win streak that dates back to 1992 – but the global reach of basketball didn’t make it easy. The U.S. women’s basketball squad will continue to be a team that draws on the unique strengths of its individual players to win championships.

“They don't care who gets the credit,” Reeve said. “They just want to win. And that's when we said that we could reach our greatest heights, if we could be that, and we've done that. So I'm really proud of us for that.”

Madie Chandler is writing for Team USA as a graduate student in the Sports Capital Journalism Program at Indiana University Indianapolis.