PARIS (France) - Nicolas Batum has a flair for the dramatic in terms of blocks at the Olympics and his latest blocked shot helped France reach the 2024 Paris Semi-Finals and moved the veteran into a tie for fifth place in the all-time leaderboard.
The 35-year-old contributed 0 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block in 33 minutes in France's 82-73 win over Canada in the Quarter-Finals.
With France leading 63-55 with 7 minutes left in the game though Batum swatted Canada star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's layup attempt. And the Americas side could not get closer than 5 points the rest of the way.
Batum, of course, made his most famous block at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, batting away a layup attempt by Klemen Prepelic in the waning seconds of the Semi-Finals.
Batum moved into a tie for fifth place with 21 blocks along with Andres Nocioni of Argentina and Yi Jianlian of China.
Most blocks all-time at the Olympics
Rank | Player | Team | Blocks |
1 | Pau Gasol | Spain | 47 |
2 | Andrei Kirilenko | Russia | 35 |
3 | Rudy Gobert* | France | 26 |
- | Yao Ming | China | 26 |
5 | Nicolas Batum* | France | 21 |
- | Andres Nocioni | Argentina | 21 |
- | Yi Jianlian | China | 21 |
8 | Andrew Bogut | Australia | 19 |
9 | Hamed EHaddadi | Iran | 18 |
10 | Luis Scola | Argentina | 17 |
- | Salah Mejri | Tunisia | 17 |
*Active players
The block was introduced as a statistic for the Olympics in 2000.
FIBA