Olympic notebook: Canadian women dunk France in final hoops tuneup

Miah-Marie Langlois scored 13 points to help the Canadian women’s basketball team beat France 71-63 on Sunday at Madison Square Garden, in the final Olympic tuneup for both teams. Canada led 33-31 at the half before scoring the first 10 points of the third quarter. France rallied and trailed by just three before Kia Nurse hit a series of free throws in the final 30 seconds to seal the victory. The Canadians will fly to Toronto before making the trip to Rio, where they open play Saturday against China.

MORE SAUDI WOMEN: Saudi Arabia will send four women to the Rio Olympics, doubling its female participation from the 2012 London Games. In track, the Saudis will send Sarah Attar, who also competed in 2012, and Cariman Abu al-Jadail. Judoka Wujud Fahmi and fencer Lubna alOmair are the others. Attar, Abu al-Jadail and Fahmi have been training in the United States, where they are students, while Al-Omair will travel to Rio from the eastern Saudi city of Khobar. The announcement comes at a time of incremental but significant progress by Saudi women, including the right to vote and run in elections for the first time in December.

ZVEREV OUT: Alexander Zverev is the latest tennis player to drop out of the Olympics, citing health issues. The 19-year-old German, ranked 25th in the world, was a first-round loser at the Rogers Cup and said he hasn’t been healthy for the past two tournaments, declining to offer details.

CAUSE FOR ALARM: A week after Australian officials found their Olympic village quarters uninhabitable because of “blocked toilets, leaking pipes and exposed wiring,” Aussie athletes had laptops and clothing stolen while their building was evacuated because of a fire. The team also claimed the fire alarms failed to work. Questions about the fire alarms aren’t good news for Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, who downplayed recent criticism of the athletes’ accommodations from Australian chef de mission Kitty Chiller by offering to place a kangaroo in the village to make Aussies feel welcome. Chiller responded by giving the mayor a toy kangaroo.

RUSSIAN DEFENCE: IOC president Thomas Bach reiterated his support for the decision against a blanket ban of the Russian team for widespread doping violations, choosing to allow individual sports to decide who can compete. “Every human being is entitled to certain rights of natural justice,” he said.