Sports
Team USA’s Olympic dominance and depth evident in the sports that matter to them
PARIS — After narrowly defeating Serbia in a surprising semifinal on Thursday, U.S. men’s basketball coach Steve Kerr was asked how the United States pulled a rabbit out of a hat and overcame a 17-point deficit to win 95-91.
“I think for 40 minutes or so our talent wore them down,” Kerr said. “They were brilliant, but we always feel we have the deepest team, we have the best players. Other countries, they all have great players now, but we have the best players.”
That’s the U.S. Olympic team in a nutshell: excellent resources.
That was the theme of those games. In the sports they care about — in the pool, on the court, on the track — the United States still has a deep bench of talent.
The Americans defeated France in the gold-medal game Saturday, 98-87, to win their fifth straight Olympic gold medal. The American women, much more dominant than the men, are favorites to win an eighth Olympic gold medal.
The women’s gymnastics team, led by sensational Simone Biles, showed its dominance, winning gold in the team final and then winning a combined seven medals in the individual events. But greater than per week after the competition ended, Team USA suffered an apparent significant setback when the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed the appeal that had catapulted Jordan Chiles from fifth place to bronze. In a unprecedented decision, the CAS restored the starting order, with Romanian Ana Barbosu taking bronze, her teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea in fourth and Chiles fifth.
In the pool, the United States won eight gold medals, its lowest total since the 1988 Seoul Games. Of the seven relays, the United States won three, while its men won only one individual medal. The women won 4 individual events, the same as Australia.
The remainder of the world remains to be trying to catch up.
The biggest display of muscle got here on the track, where the United States put in its best effort since the 1984 Olympics, winning 34 track and field medals, 14 of which were gold. The women’s 4 × 400 relay team finished with eight consecutive gold medals in the event. Relay runners Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas won their second and third gold medals, respectively. Thomas became the second U.S. runner since Allyson Felix to win three gold medals at the Olympics.
Sarah Stier/Getty Images
The biggest muscular spectacle took place on the track, where the United States had won 19 medals through Friday, including six gold.
McLaughlin-Levrone, the most dominant athlete on the track, broke her own world record in the 400-meter hurdles. She said an enormous a part of her inspiration was the presence of friends and family in the stadium. For a lot of the Olympians, who competed in the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where fans weren’t allowed, the Games were fueled by the energy provided by the fans.
McLaughlin-Levrone said her 2021 Olympic performance was greatly impacted by the absence of an audience due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“It’s special to know that your people are here,” she said. “Just having those moments to look back on when you’re done running, having those pictures with your family and friends, no matter the outcome, that’s one of the things I’ve missed. Rio (2016), I didn’t win a medal, and in Tokyo there was no one. Those were my first real Olympics.”
But she also warned that despite her dominance, the world is gaining.
“The event is getting faster and faster,” she said. “That depth always keeps me on my toes, makes me want to find ways to improve and get better at the race. I love being able to improve.”
On Wednesday, Thomas won gold in the 200 meters, beating 100-meter champion Julien Alfred of St. Lucia. Thomas’ teammate Brittany Brown finished third, winning bronze. On Friday, the women’s 4×100 relay team, led by lightning-fast Sha’Carri Richardson, won its twelfth gold medal and third in 4 Olympics.
As heavy rain fell, Team USA endured a failed rally between Twanisha Terry and Thomas, but Richardson made up for it by chasing down two runners and ending together with her signature kick. The kick had come up short two days earlier when Richardson lost the gold medal match to Alfred.
Richardson closed operations on Friday.
“I just trusted Gabby and knew she was going to give me a hard time no matter what,” Richardson said later.
Julian Finney/Getty Images
The U.S. men weren’t so lucky. For the fifth straight Olympics, the men botched their transition and were disqualified. Canada took gold, South Africa silver, and Great Britain bronze.
The men’s performance was so woeful that it drew criticism from Olympic sprinter and long jumper Carl Lewis, who won nine gold medals in the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. Lewis slammed Team USA coaches on X, formerly generally known as Twitter.
Missing from the relay was sprinter Noah Lyles, who won gold in an electrifying 100-meter dash on Monday and bronze in the 200-meter dash on Thursday; he later revealed he had tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday.
“It’s time to blow up this system” Lewis wrote“This continues to be completely unacceptable. It’s clear that EVERYONE at @usatf is more interested in relationships than winning. No athlete should get on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom.”
However, there have been also positive results.
Rai Benjamin won his first Olympic gold medal Friday in the 400-meter hurdles. Grant Holloway won gold in the 110-meter hurdles. Cole Hocker pulled off a surprise in the 1,500 meters in an Olympic-record time and Quincy Hall made a spectacular comeback to win gold in the 400 meters. Hall became the first American to win gold in the 400 meters since 2008.
And on Friday, Quincy Wilson, the 16-year-old phenom, became the youngest athlete to run for Team USA when he ran the first leg of the men’s 4×400 relay in the first heat. Wilson didn’t run well, and the U.S. simply had to hustle to qualify for the final. But the experience was invaluable to the young sprinter, and perhaps an indication of the depth of the U.S. bench. With Wilson in the stands Saturday, Team USA won the gold medal in the 4×400 relay.
But the world remains to be playing catch-up, and the query is whether or not the depth we took without any consideration is being undermined. At the end of Saturday’s competition, the United States was one behind China in gold medals, with 37, but led the overall standings with 121 medals, while China had 89. Through Saturday, the Americans had won 24 gold medals, to China’s 17; the Chinese had 17 gold medals, to the United States’ 12.
We can all the time nitpick. The United States has never won a medal in badminton, table tennis, handball, trampoline, or rhythmic gymnastics. On the other hand, in cycling, the U.S. women’s pursuit team won its first gold medal in 12 years. Team USA won its first medal in artistic swimming in 20 years and won its first men’s Olympic weightlifting medal in 40 years.
The lesson learned from these Olympics is that in the sports that matter to the United States — swimming, basketball, gymnastics and track and field — dominance continues.
The query is, for a way long.
The 2025 Basketball Africa League season will feature a brand new venue for the finals and playoffs and will also start at a brand new location.
The BAL 2025 Playoffs and Finals, scheduled for June 14, 2025, will happen at the recent home in Pretoria, South Africa. This will be the first time the BAL playoffs and finals haven’t been held in Kigali, Rwanda. The BAL 2025 season will also debut in a brand new location in Rabat, Morocco on April 5, 2025. During the BAL 2025 season, 12 of the best club teams from 12 African countries will play 48 matches in Rabat, Kigali and Dakar, Senegal, before traveling to Pretoria for play- offs.
“Over the first four seasons of BAL, we have seen tremendous growth in on-court competition, attendance and engagement from fans and partners in Africa and around the world,” BAL president Amadou Gallo Fall said in a press release. “Our groundbreaking fifth season will build on this momentum and continue to showcase the level of talent and passion for basketball in Africa, including through the first BAL games in Morocco and the first BAL Finals in South Africa.”
The 12 teams will be divided again into three conferences of 4 teams each. The group stage of the Kalahari Conference will happen from April 5 to 13, 2025 in Rabat. The group stage of the Sahara Conference will be held in Dakar from April 26 to May 4, 2025. The group stage of the Nile Conference will be held in Kigali from May 17 to 25, 2025. Eight teams from the three conferences will qualify for the play-offs in Pretoria, which will start on June 6 and end with the BAL 2025 finals.
“The Kalahari conference marks another expansion of BAL into a new country on our continent and we are more than satisfied,” FIBA Africa president Anibal Manave said in a press release. “The competition continues to grow each year, providing greater exposure for our sport and helping to raise the level of basketball in Africa, making the league increasingly competitive.”
National champions from Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia routinely qualify for the BAL. The remaining five teams are from FIBA Africa’s Road to the BAL qualifying tournaments.
In the 2024 BAL season, Petro de Luanda of Angola became the first team from Sub-Saharan Africa to win the championship. According to BAL, the 2024 BAL season reached fans in 214 countries and territories in 17 languages, set an attendance record of greater than 120,000 fans in the 4 host countries and generated greater than 1.2 billion views across the NBA and BAL social media channels.
NFL Hall of Fame receiver and podcast host Terrell Owens has signed with a talent agency to further strengthen his claims within the entertainment game.
According to , Owens was signed by SMAC Entertainment, headed by host and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and his business partner Constance Schwartz-Morini.
NFL insider Jordan Schultz has also joined SMAC Entertainment.
“We are excited to add TO and Jordan to the SMAC family. They are both at the top of their game and set the standard in their industry,” Schwartz-Morini said in a written statement. “TO and Jordan have already brought an infectious energy to our team, and we are excited to help them realize their vision for careers in media, business and branding.”
A five-time first-team All-Pro and six-time Pro Bowler, Owens played for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. In 2018, he was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A member of the 2000 NFL All-Decade Team, Owens finished his profession with 1,078 catches for 15,934 yards, 14.8 yards per catch and 153 touchdowns, rating third all-time in receiving yards and touchdowns.
Since retiring from skilled soccer in 2012, Owens has already made several moves. He has appeared in several movies and tv shows, including “,” and in addition had his own reality show, “, on VH1.
He currently co-hosts the podcast with former NFL player and sports analyst Shannon Sharpe.
SMAC Entertainment is home to stars similar to rapper and actor Common, Wiz Khalifa, Strahan, Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders and current NFL players similar to Stefon Diggs and DK Metcalf.
Sports
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker brings an NBA championship desire with his Olympic experience
The gold medal went to the USA Basketball team. Mission completed on the 2024 Paris Games. U.S. men’s basketball coach Steve Kerr just answered his final query during his final news conference on Aug. 10 after his team defeated France within the gold medal game.
However, before leaving the stage of the press conference in Paris, Kerr stopped to deliver an unsolicited message to media around the globe.
“Devin Booker is an amazing basketball player. Nobody asked about him. He was our unsung MVP. I just desired to say that,” Kerr said.
The “underrated MVP” compliment meant so much to the Phoenix Suns guard.
“It meant everything. No one really asked him,” Booker recently told Andscape. “That was probably something that was weighing on his mind throughout the entire process. A 12 months ago I said what I desired to do for this team and what we desired to do for the country.
“It was a lot larger than all of us. Survival was something we’d discuss for the remainder of our lives.
The USA Basketball team was centered around NBA star icons LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. There has also been some discussion amongst media and fans in regards to the lack of playing time for Jayson Tatum and, to a lesser extent, Tyrese Haliburton. Lost within the shuffle was the all-around, unselfish play of sharpshooter Booker wearing the armband.
Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images
Booker was fourth in scoring for the U.S., averaging 11.7 points, 3.3 assists and a couple of.2 three-pointers made early in all six Olympics, and likewise had the perfect plus/minus (plus-130) for an American. Kerr was impressed with Booker’s deal with a difficult defense, regardless that he is thought for his offense, ball movement and the way he has adjusted to not being one in every of the highest options on offense.
“I just understood what was at stake,” Booker said. “I’m proud to be from this country. I’m happy with playing basketball. Even though it wasn’t invented in America, we dominated for a very long time. Obviously the world is incredibly talented and the sport is growing, however it was just one other message to allow them to know who we’re.
Booker said he also learned in regards to the preparations from his all-star team, watching the preparations on and off the court. The 28-year-old added that he gained lifelong friendships.
“It’s cool to see that everyone has their own issues,” Booker said. “In my 10 years in the NBA, I’ve learned that you have to choose what you can use for yourself. But the level of detail, the attention to detail, the intensity – it’s all consistent across the board.”
As for Durant, Booker said the bond between the 2 Sun stars “is close and grows stronger every day.” They live about five minutes from one another within the Phoenix area and commonly spend time at home and on the road. Most recently, Booker had to steer the Suns without Durant, who was sidelined with an injury.
The amazing Durant averaged 27.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and three.4 assists, which were tops for the Suns. However, the 14-time NBA All-Star has been sidelined since November 8 with a left calf strain. Suns players Bradley Beal (calf) and Jusuf Nurkic (ankle) were also sidelined. The Suns are 1-5 without Durant, which incorporates 4 straight losses.
Booker and Suns sans Durant’s next rivals shall be the New York Knicks on Wednesday evening (ESPN, 10 p.m. ET). Over the last six games, Booker is averaging 24.1 points, shooting 43.2% from the sphere and making 16 of 43 three-pointers. Suns guard Tyus Jones said there was numerous pressure on Booker offensively due to the injury.
“We’re asking a lot of Book,” Jones said after Monday’s 109-99 loss to the visiting Orlando Magic. “It’s numerous pressure for him. We are very focused on it. They are physical with him, holding him and grabbing him, throwing two or three bodies at him all night long. So he’s got so much on his plate and we just need to proceed to seek out ways to get him open within the moments we will and proceed to assist him when other players are taking shots and making plays.
Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images
Booker currently has two Olympic gold medals, 4 NBA All-Star appearances and one NBA Finals appearance. The only thing missing from the Suns’ second-leading all-time scorer is an NBA championship. Since the Suns joined the NBA as an expansion team in 1968, they’ve yet to win a title.
After experiencing the joys of winning a gold medal, Booker as an NBA champion wants the gold Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy much more.
“Most of the guys that were there did it,” Booker said of his Olympic teammates who were NBA champions. “They were champions. This is standard for them. Anything lower than that, they need nothing to do with it. It’s contagious…
“That’s all I want. That’s all I want.”
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