France beats US men
American men’s basketball team loses its opening Olympic game.
The final buzzer sounded and France barely celebrated.
To them, beating the United States again wasn’t really a surprise. And that might be the biggest indicator yet that the Americans — even after three consecutive Olympic gold medals — are no longer feared by some international teams.
A 25-game Olympic winning streak for the U.S. is over, ending Sunday when France closed the game on a 16-2 run to beat the Americans 83-76.
Evan Fournier’s 3-pointer off a broken play with just under a minute left put France ahead for good, as the Americans fell apart in the final minutes. That’s been proven with alarming regularity in the last two years. Starting with France’s win over the U.S. in the Basketball World Cup quarterfinals at China two years ago, the U.S. is 3-5 in its last eight games.
The U.S. missed its final nine shots, five of them coming in a 21-second span in the final minute shortly after Fournier, who had a game-high 28, made the go-ahead 3-pointer. Rudy Gobert wildly missed a layup on that play, but Guerschon Yabusele chased down the rebound and just before he dove into the U.S. bench, he made a desperation swipe at the ball in an effort to knock it into Fournier’s direction.
Fournier turned Yabusele’s dive into a dagger.
“I think that’s a little bit of hubris if you think the Americans are supposed to just roll out the balls and win,” U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said. “We’ve got to work for it just like everybody else.”
An estimated 17 million people in the United States watched the opening ceremony held in a largely empty stadium, down 36% from the kickoff to the Rio de Janeiro Games five years ago. The 17 million includes people who watched the ceremony live on NBC or online when it aired Friday morning and those who saw an edited version on NBC in prime time that night, the Nielsen company said Sunday.
Katie Ledecky opened her Olympic program as the top qualifier in the 400-meter freestyle on Sunday night, setting up a showdown with Ariarne Titmus of Australia as the American star tries to defend her title. Ledecky advanced with a time of 4 minutes, 0.45 seconds. Titmus was third-quickest in 4:01.66. The first of their multiple showdowns in Tokyo comes in the final on Monday morning.