In the end, after weeks and months and years of work, the difference between overtime and Olympic gold was a matter of inches. It looked like France’s Gabby Williams may have tied things up with a ridiculous running bank shot at the buzzer. But replays showed her foot on the line, and the U.S. women’s basketball team escaped with a 67-66 win and an eighth straight gold medal by the slimmest of margins.
A’ja Wilson willed herself to 21 points and 13 rebounds for the U.S., which found itself down by as many as 10 points in the third quarter on a day when nothing, at either end, came easy. But Team USA, tested for the first time after running roughshod in Paris, buckled down when it mattered, eking ahead late to preserve its golden streak and earn a 61st consecutive Olympic win. Williams led Les Bleus with 19 points, the only French player in double figures, but her would-be heroics were relegated to a footnote in the cruelest possible fashion.
Read on for a full recap and takeaways from a second straight classic Olympic final at Bercy Arena.
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