As expected, the U.S. men’s basketball team completed its mission of winning back the Olympic gold medal. The Americans outgunned Spain 117-108 on Sunday afternoon for the 13th basketball gold medal in 16 Olympics.
It came to little more than this, according to Lakers star Pau Gasol, who scored 21 points for Spain: “I think they took this tournament very seriously.”
But what happens four years from now?
Will Kobe Bryant be back for another Olympics? Not likely.
How about LeBron James or Dwyane Wade? Who knows, but neither is a lock.
Jerry Colangelo, managing director of USA basketball offered one piece of encouraging news. He said five or six members of this team expressed their unsolicited intention to return to the program for the London Games.
Finally, in the gold medal game, the USA men’s basketball team had to play a nervous fourth quarter. After winning its first seven games of the Olympic tournament by an average of 30.3 points, the American players had to stay intense almost to the buzzer before beating Spain, 118-107. The victory allowed the USA to again claim the gold medal after an embarrassing bronze medal finish in Athens four years ago.
And it was pretty interesting along the way. Spain used a zone defense and a plucky offense to stay in striking distance and annoy the heck out of the Americans’ plans to break downcourt and break open the game. This kept the action from being anything close to artistic. Which is what Spain wanted. And the USA led by only 104-99 with 3:23 left in the game.
But then, what needed to happen actually did happen. The ball went into Kobe Bryant’s hands at the three-point arc. He deked a shot. He caught Spanish defender Rudy Fernandez in mid-air and shot the ball. Swish. Foul. It was Fernandez’s fifth, which was significant because he was leading Spain in scoring and had been causing the USA fits.
The play was huge. Because by the time Bryant made the free throw, the USA not only had a 108-99 lead, but Spain had no more go-to guy. The margin did close to within four points with 2:25 left. But this time, USA guard Dwayne Wade hit his own clutch three point shot to stretch the lead back to 111-104 with 2:02 remaining. The rest of the way, the USA shot free throws.
And at the buzzer, refreshingly, the American players did not try to act too cool. LeBron James and Michael Redd embraced like two junior high ballers who had won the school Christmas tournament. Then they met at center court and hopped up and down, woofed and then broke open the huddle with waves to the crowd. It was a hard-earned victory. And it was nice to see the USA work hard to earn it. That will probably be the theme of my column for Sunday’s print edition, although let’s see what happens in the postgame interviews.
Kenyan Samuel Kamau Wansiru won the marathon with a new Olympic record of 2:06.32.
Ryan Hall finished in 10th place, one spot behind fellow American Dathan Ritzenhein
It’s a beautiful day for the marathon here in Beijing. The air is clear, the temperature about 77. Beijing couldn’t ask for a nicer final day to the Olympics.
The men’s marathon is more than half way completed. Stanford graduate Ryan Hall has steadily dropped in position: after 5K he was 11 seconds behind. By 10 K he was in 26th place, 46 seconds behind. By the midway point, Hall was in 17th place, 1 minute and 55 seconds behind the leaders.
Oregon’s Dathan Ritzenhein was in 12th place miday, 1 minute 20 seconds back.
A group of five African runners - Kenyans Samuel Kamau Wanstru and Martin Lel, Eritrean Yonas Kifle, Ethiopian Deribe Merga and Morroco’s Jaouad Gharib - have been leading the race together, though their pack is beginning to break up now.
Kenya’s Luke Kibet just stopped running and walked off the course.
Sanya Richards reversed a disappointing third place in the 400 meters to lead the U.S. women to victory Saturday night in the women’s 1,600 relay in front of 91,000 at the Bird’s Nest.
Richards’ stirring anchor leg was the highlight on the last night of track and field at the Beijing Games (the men’s marathon is scheduled Sunday). The powerful U.S. men’s 1,600 relay set an Olympic record in easily outpacing second-place Bahamas and the bronze-medalists from Russia. Led by Jeremy Wariner’s anchor leg of 43.18 seconds the Americans finished in 2:55.39, about 2 ½ seconds ahead of the Bahamas. 400-meter gold medalist LaShawn Merritt and 400 hurdles winner Angelo Taylor ran the first two legs to win their second gold medals.
But this was Richard’s night.
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The USA women’s volleyball team could not quite get over the hump against Brazil in the gold medal match here Saturday night, losing in four sets.
However, by handing the Brazilian team its only set loss of the tournament to tie the match at 1-1, the American women made a lot of the dancing Brazilians in the crowd more than a little nervous. And although Brazil won the next two sets to close out the match (25-15, 18-25, 25-13, 25-21), the USA women managed their best finish since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Since then, there had been only a bronze medal to show for the female side of the USA indoor volleyball program. This may open the door to greater things in the future.
“It’s a sweet feeling,” said Logan Tom, the 27-year-old former Stanford player who returned from the beach game so she could play in these Olympics. “I’m happy we are where we are and that we came as far as we did. We never stopped fighting.”
I’ll be filing a column about the game and the team for Sunday morning’s print edition.
They tried something new. They executed something dazzling. The U.S. women’s synchronized swim team today tried its best to shock the system of a conservative sport with an unorthodox free routine filled with risky, gymnastic lifts, flailing legs and arms and hardly anything seen on the international stage in the past.
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Stanford graduate Layne Beaubien talked at length about the financial woes of U.S. men’s water polo players Friday night after the Americans shocked Serbia 10-5 to advance to Sunday’s gold-medal match.
After all the reporters left the mixed zone except San Diego Union-Tribune ace Mark Zeigler and me, Beaubien opened up about the details of the players having their funding taken away.
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Spitz - Sabine, not Mark - won the women’s mountain bike racing today. But perhaps Mark Spitz will count it to catch up to Michael Phelps, the swimmer who destroyed his iconic record of seven gold medals in one Olympics.
Santa Clara University graduate Mary McConneloug was seventh and Georgia Gould of Baltimore eighth. McConneloug finished in 1 hour 50:34 minutes, 5:23 behind gold-medal winner Spitz of Germany. Gould was 17 seconds behind McConneloug.
Maja Wloszczowska of Poland won the silver medal, Irina Kalentyeva of Russia the bronze.
The melting pot of America continues to unfold at the Beijing Games.
Seventeen days after Lopez Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, carried the flag during opening ceremony an archer from the Republic of Georgia was picked to be the flag bearer for Sunday’s closing.
Khatuna Lorig of West Hollywood was picked by team captains.
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