Qualified Team Focus - USA: Will the champions capture title number 10?

MIES (Switzerland) - The Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024 lineup is now known and with the game schedule also confirmed, we're checking out the 12 nations bidding for glory at Paris 2024.

We're starting with reigning champions USA as the number one team in the FIBA World Ranking Women, presented by Nike. The USA Basketball Women’s National Team is hosting right now a training camp for April 3-5 at Cleveland Clinic Courts in Cleveland.

How they qualified

USA punched their ticket for the event when they were crowned winners of the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2022 in Sydney. That booked them an automatic spot along with Olympic host nation France.

However, USA still competed at the FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2024 in Antwerp, going an unbeaten 3-0 but needing a dramatic 81-79 buzzer-beating win against the Belgian Cats in front of more than 13,000 home fans. 

Record at the Olympics

Appearances: 12 - 1976 (2nd); 1984 (1st); 1988 (1st); 1992 (3rd); 1996 (1st); 2000 (1st); 2004 (1st); 2008 (1st); 2012 (1st), 2016 (1st); 2020 (1st); 2024

Medals: 11 -🥇(1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020)🥈(1976) 🥉(1992)

Last appearance 

USA landed their 9th OIympic title and seventh in a row at Tokyo 2020 as they beat local favorites Japan 90-75, with Brittney Griner dropping a spectacular 30 points. 

The Group Phase 

USA were drawn in Pool C which is the obligatory 'Group of Death' as it includes Tokyo 2020 Finalists Japan, ambitious Euro champs Belgium and Olympics debutantes Germany. It means USA will not only open up with a repeat of that last Olympics Final, but also re-engage with Belgium just a few months after that incredible thriller in Antwerp. 

USA Group Phase games

vs Japan (July 29)
vs Belgium (August 1)
vs Germany (August 4)

Players to watch

USA are simply stuffed with stardust and have so many of the planet's leading ballers that they will inevitably be stocked with stellar names.

Five-time Olympic champion Diana Taurasi (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) is one of nine Olympians who is participating these days in the Cleveland training camp. So are Ariel Atkins (2020), Chelsea Gray (2020), Brittney Griner (2016, 2020), Jewell Loyd (2020), Kelsey Plum (2020, 3x3), Breanna Stewart (2016, 2020), A’ja Wilson (2020) and Jackie Young (2020, 3x3).

Eight of April’s participants were members of the gold-medal-winning 2022 USA Women’s World Cup Team, including Atkins, Shakira Austin, Gray, Sabrina Ionescu, Loyd, Plum, Stewart and Wilson. Caitlin Clark will attend training camp, contingent on University of Iowa’s progression through the NCAA Tournament. Clark has won three titles with USA Basketball junior national teams including most recently at the FIBA U19 Women's World Cup 2021.

 

Qualified Team Focus series

During the coming weeks and months, we will continue to check out the remaining 11 teams ready to step out at Paris 2024 as part of our Qualified Team Focus series.

FIBA