I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
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hedonist
standing on the edge of forever Posts: 24,524
I read Japan will lose at least 20 billion…lmfao. Toyota cancelled their ads in support of the Japanese people who wanted the games cancelled…
and yes fans matter. Now Japan and her citizens are really on the hook…
and many of those venues will not be utilized when the games are over.
countries need to re-think if the bullshit Olympics are worth it anymore…
Yah, I read the Japan legally didn't have the capacity to cancel or postpone them. They got stuck in a bad place.
I'm not sure why countries are so eager to host them. It does seem like a giant money pit of which you have very little control over. Japan is probably the worst example, because of the pandemic, and not getting any ticket revenue.. but other years countries end up losing too.
Maybe countries will be less eager going forward. Maybe repeating cities from the past that already infrastructure in place?
There should really only be 2-3 "permanent" hosts for each of the summer and winter Olympics. It's a huge money suck for most countries who have to build a ridiculous amount of infrastructure/stadiums/arenas etc. Then after the olympics are over almost all of the facilities are just abandoned.
It would make sense to me to not host them all I. 1 place. Why not 1 country do water sports that already has the pools, another dog gymnastics, another open water sports, etc. you who’s t have to build a village to host thr athletes and staff, or not one nearly as big. Smaller investment for the country, and you’re not stuck with the same 3 or 4.
I would pay to see these dog gymnastics of which you speak.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
People are being able to perform highly at longer times. Look at our swimming team.
The old guard has been outed from women's gymnastics so I would think and hope that just because you are older doesn't mean you can't compete. Simone has already proven that.
I would love to see multiple Olympic participants. I think FloJo could have competed in 92 if she wanted but Olympians weren't viewed like that back then.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I agree i saw her there cheering on the team and her team mate getting gold. My heart is with her. Im not American but i am human. Let me run into the rain to shine a human light today!
Well said. She’s been through a lot in her young life. Rough childhood and abused by Dr. Nasser. Who are we to doubt what’s best for her.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
People are being able to perform highly at longer times. Look at our swimming team.
The old guard has been outed from women's gymnastics so I would think and hope that just because you are older doesn't mean you can't compete. Simone has already proven that.
I would love to see multiple Olympic participants. I think FloJo could have competed in 92 if she wanted but Olympians weren't viewed like that back then.
Female gymnastics is much harder on the body than swimming though. While swimming at the Olympic level still requires full time training and conditioning, it doesn’t wear on the body like gymnastics does with the tumbles, flips, hard landings, injuries and so on. Its possible she competes in 3 years, I just see it as unlikely.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
The team that won in Rio in 2016 had 2 19-year olds, 2 20-year olds, and Aly Raisman was 22.
I agree with you that it's unlikely that Biles will compete in Paris in 2024.
You see me empty, Sir, do not pause and inquire, simply assume and refill.
- Al Swearengen
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
People are being able to perform highly at longer times. Look at our swimming team.
The old guard has been outed from women's gymnastics so I would think and hope that just because you are older doesn't mean you can't compete. Simone has already proven that.
I would love to see multiple Olympic participants. I think FloJo could have competed in 92 if she wanted but Olympians weren't viewed like that back then.
Female gymnastics is much harder on the body than swimming though. While swimming at the Olympic level still requires full time training and conditioning, it doesn’t wear on the body like gymnastics does with the tumbles, flips, hard landings, injuries and so on. Its possible she competes in 3 years, I just see it as unlikely.
I thought training had progressed further to limit injuries, guess not.
I always thought it was because there was no money in it for years. If you won a gold, you stopped because you were sponsored, maybe on a wheaties box, few commercials and could go on with your life.
So 3 time Olympian is just not a thing then in gymnastics.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
The team that won in Rio in 2016 had 2 19-year olds, 2 20-year olds, and Aly Raisman was 22.
I agree with you that it's unlikely that Biles will compete in Paris in 2024.
Ms. Biles has her own gym in Houston that this team trained at. I can easily see her supplanting US Gymnastics in training, bringing in sponsorship dollars, the whole ball of wax.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
The team that won in Rio in 2016 had 2 19-year olds, 2 20-year olds, and Aly Raisman was 22.
I agree with you that it's unlikely that Biles will compete in Paris in 2024.
Ms. Biles has her own gym in Houston that this team trained at. I can easily see her supplanting US Gymnastics in training, bringing in sponsorship dollars, the whole ball of wax.
In effect she already has. She tweets, they jump.
In her 60min interview she mentioned that she brought in "Smiling". How crazy of training were you in that you couldn't laugh and crack a smile in?
She has introduced a whole knew way to compete and I think more young women would enjoy it.
I feel so bad for Simone. I don’t know why anyone would be upset with her decision, including her teammates. It’s not like she withdrew to go film a movie and bail. She was doing worse and worse every day and feared for her safety and knew someone else could do better. They wouldn’t have even won silver if she stayed and fell off the beam a couple times. This was no doubt the toughest decision of her life. This sport at that level you don’t have a life outside gymnastics. You give up your childhood (and as we later learned, a lot more than that) for just a few moments at the olympics. The window where your body can perform is so small you’re lucky if you get 2 chances. She will almost certainly be retired in 3 years. There’s no way she would withdraw her second and last chance to compete unless she had to and it was for the best. This may be the most demanding sport. It’s not like curling where you work at Best Buy and practice on the weekends then go for a beer. You train full time, all year. She gave all that up. That decision was not made lightly. She will be asked for the rest of her life why, and the what if’s. Hoping she can perform in the individual events. Haven’t heard anything on that yet.
I think, if she can and wants to. She could do it again. Oksana Chusovitina.
She’s the crazy rare exception. When’s the last time we had an American gymnast over 25? I can’t even remember any over 20. My wife and I commented this group is the olde at I can ever remember, all look to be 18+, and we figured it was USA gymnastics trying to reimage themselves after the last few years. Even going with an older group, 27 in gymnastics is like 54 in the NFL.
People are being able to perform highly at longer times. Look at our swimming team.
The old guard has been outed from women's gymnastics so I would think and hope that just because you are older doesn't mean you can't compete. Simone has already proven that.
I would love to see multiple Olympic participants. I think FloJo could have competed in 92 if she wanted but Olympians weren't viewed like that back then.
Female gymnastics is much harder on the body than swimming though. While swimming at the Olympic level still requires full time training and conditioning, it doesn’t wear on the body like gymnastics does with the tumbles, flips, hard landings, injuries and so on. Its possible she competes in 3 years, I just see it as unlikely.
I thought training had progressed further to limit injuries, guess not.
I always thought it was because there was no money in it for years. If you won a gold, you stopped because you were sponsored, maybe on a wheaties box, few commercials and could go on with your life.
So 3 time Olympian is just not a thing then in gymnastics.
I’m sure it has improved. But all that tumbling still causes chronic pain as they age. I just googled this, it’s a short read about it. I knew of about half these issues, but it changes their bodies in a lot of ways. Few sports are probably as demanding and hard on the body as gymnastics. The current gold medal winner in race waking for 2016 was 33 when he won. He probably has another 30 years where he can race. https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/science/humans/article/2016/08/09/what-happens-gymnasts-body-it-ages
Men's Olympics hoops bracket set: U.S., Spain to meet in quarters
The Associated Press
7h ago
Stephen Gosling / National Basketball Association / Getty
SAITAMA, Japan (AP) — The U.S. and Spain played for Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012, then in the semifinals in 2016.
And at the Tokyo Games, the top teams in the FIBA world rankings will meet again — just earlier than has been the norm.
The three-time reigning Olympic champion Americans will face reigning World Cup champion Spain in the quarterfinals of the men’s tournament at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday, a matchup of teams that finished second in their respective groups at the Olympics.
Spain fell outside of the seeded pool, and knew it had exposed itself to a potential matchup with the U.S., by losing the group-play finale to Slovenia on Sunday. And about an hour later, when FIBA held the Olympic draw, the matchup was set.
“If you’re going to get that gold medal, you’re going to beat everybody,” Spain center Marc Gasol said. “At that point, it doesn’t matter, the order.”
The U.S. is 16-2 against Spain in Olympic or World Cup competition — yet recent matchups haven’t exactly been runaways. The Americans won 82-76 in the 2016 Olympic semifinals, 107-100 in the 2012 gold-medal game at London, and 118-107 in the gold-medal matchup at Beijing in 2008.
“This Olympics is just going to get better as far as basketball is concerned, because the teams are all pretty passionate and very talented and have a lot of individual players that people will enjoy on TV,” U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said.
The other quarterfinals: Group A winner France (3-0) will face Italy (2-1, second place in Group , Group B winner Australia (3-0) plays Argentina (1-2, third place in Group C), and Group C winner Slovenia (3-0) drew a matchup with Germany (1-2, second place in Group .
The Italy-France winner will play the Slovenia-Germany winner in one semifinal, and the U.S.-Spain winner plays the Australia-Argentina winner in the other. The quarterfinals are win-or-go-home; a victory means teams are assured of two more games — the semifinals followed by a gold- or bronze-medal contest — before leaving Tokyo.
“Everybody knows that there are no easy opponents, especially USA, Australia, France, those kind of teams,” Slovenia guard Zoran Dragic said. “That’s why everybody wanted to be first in their group.”
The U.S., which lost to France in the Olympic opener, got into the seeded pot of the draw by finishing as the top second-place team. That meant it couldn’t face any of the group winners in the quarterfinals, but also had to play another second-place finisher — in this case, either Italy or Spain.
Once Italy was drawn to play France, the matchup was clear: The U.S. and Spain would meet again.
And in terms of the world rankings, the brackets for the Olympic quarterfinals are unusual: No. 1 plays No. 2 in the USA-Spain contest, and No. 3 Australia plays No. 4 Argentina. The other matchups, by world ranking, are No. 7 France against No. 10 Italy and No. 16 Slovenia against No. 17 Germany.
France and Italy have gone 14-14 against one another in FIBA and Olympic play. Slovenia is 4-3 against Germany and Australia and Argentina have split six previous meetings.
Qatar and Italy tie in the high jump. The judge tells them they need to have a jump off. Qatar’s Barshim says “why can’t we both get gold medals?”
Italy’s Tamberi jumped in his arms w joy.
Great moment. Watch it if u have time.
I was watching that, and I thought that was part of the rules.. that it was a defined choice, not some random act that the judge approved. I mean it's great that they said yes.. but honestly.. wouldn't we all say yes and take the gold?
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F Me In The Brain
this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 30,659
edited August 2021
I don't know, honestly. In every way I can actually relate I would rather go for the win....but, it is a gold medal and I can't relate to that, to what that actually means to these folks who work so long and hard for that as a goal. Perhaps a tie would be every bit as amazing in that spot. Certainly a gold medal is something that will always stand for the best in the world at something.
The love he receives is the love that is saved
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F Me In The Brain
this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 30,659
I don't know, honestly. In every way I can actually relate I would rather go for the win....but, it is a gold medal and I can't relate to that, to what that actually means to these folks who work so long and hard for that as a goal. Perhaps a tie would be every bit as amazing in that spot. Certainly a gold medal is something that will always stand for the best in the world at something.
I mean maybe if you're team USA hockey or basketball, maybe you play for it all. But I would think in an individualized event like that, no one will every care/know that you were tied for the best.
Comments
The old guard has been outed from women's gymnastics so I would think and hope that just because you are older doesn't mean you can't compete. Simone has already proven that.
I would love to see multiple Olympic participants. I think FloJo could have competed in 92 if she wanted but Olympians weren't viewed like that back then.
Its possible she competes in 3 years, I just see it as unlikely.
- Al Swearengen
http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com
That's that Oksana chick? Never mind the above post. Good work, Tempo.
I always thought it was because there was no money in it for years. If you won a gold, you stopped because you were sponsored, maybe on a wheaties box, few commercials and could go on with your life.
So 3 time Olympian is just not a thing then in gymnastics.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
She has introduced a whole knew way to compete and I think more young women would enjoy it.
https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/science/humans/article/2016/08/09/what-happens-gymnasts-body-it-ages
Tokyo 2020 Olympic Medals - the Greatest Honour for Athletes (olympics.com)
astoria 06
albany 06
hartford 06
reading 06
barcelona 06
paris 06
wembley 07
dusseldorf 07
nijmegen 07
this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
Beast.
Men's Olympics hoops bracket set: U.S., Spain to meet in quarters
SAITAMA, Japan (AP) — The U.S. and Spain played for Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012, then in the semifinals in 2016.
And at the Tokyo Games, the top teams in the FIBA world rankings will meet again — just earlier than has been the norm.
The three-time reigning Olympic champion Americans will face reigning World Cup champion Spain in the quarterfinals of the men’s tournament at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday, a matchup of teams that finished second in their respective groups at the Olympics.
Spain fell outside of the seeded pool, and knew it had exposed itself to a potential matchup with the U.S., by losing the group-play finale to Slovenia on Sunday. And about an hour later, when FIBA held the Olympic draw, the matchup was set.
“If you’re going to get that gold medal, you’re going to beat everybody,” Spain center Marc Gasol said. “At that point, it doesn’t matter, the order.”
The U.S. is 16-2 against Spain in Olympic or World Cup competition — yet recent matchups haven’t exactly been runaways. The Americans won 82-76 in the 2016 Olympic semifinals, 107-100 in the 2012 gold-medal game at London, and 118-107 in the gold-medal matchup at Beijing in 2008.
“This Olympics is just going to get better as far as basketball is concerned, because the teams are all pretty passionate and very talented and have a lot of individual players that people will enjoy on TV,” U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said.
The other quarterfinals: Group A winner France (3-0) will face Italy (2-1, second place in Group
, Group B winner Australia (3-0) plays Argentina (1-2, third place in Group C), and Group C winner Slovenia (3-0) drew a matchup with Germany (1-2, second place in Group 
.
The Italy-France winner will play the Slovenia-Germany winner in one semifinal, and the U.S.-Spain winner plays the Australia-Argentina winner in the other. The quarterfinals are win-or-go-home; a victory means teams are assured of two more games — the semifinals followed by a gold- or bronze-medal contest — before leaving Tokyo.
“Everybody knows that there are no easy opponents, especially USA, Australia, France, those kind of teams,” Slovenia guard Zoran Dragic said. “That’s why everybody wanted to be first in their group.”
The U.S., which lost to France in the Olympic opener, got into the seeded pot of the draw by finishing as the top second-place team. That meant it couldn’t face any of the group winners in the quarterfinals, but also had to play another second-place finisher — in this case, either Italy or Spain.
Once Italy was drawn to play France, the matchup was clear: The U.S. and Spain would meet again.
And in terms of the world rankings, the brackets for the Olympic quarterfinals are unusual: No. 1 plays No. 2 in the USA-Spain contest, and No. 3 Australia plays No. 4 Argentina. The other matchups, by world ranking, are No. 7 France against No. 10 Italy and No. 16 Slovenia against No. 17 Germany.
France and Italy have gone 14-14 against one another in FIBA and Olympic play. Slovenia is 4-3 against Germany and Australia and Argentina have split six previous meetings.
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Italy’s Tamberi jumped in his arms w joy.
Great moment. Watch it if u have time.
And yeah, the next up was bronze. No silver.