Women’s Basketball：Group A Preview

 

(Beijing, July 19) -- It's unfair that women's basketball group A is getting less pre-Games attention than group B, which features host China and the gold medal winner three years running U.S. After all, group A has both the silver and bronze winners from the Athen 2004 Summer Games, Australia and Russia respectively, as well as Brazil who came in just 4th place that year.

Aside from the previous Olympics' frontrunners, FIBA 2007 Asia champions The Republic of Korea is eager to succeed, as are Belarus and Latvia's teams. This is the only Olympic event Latvia qualified for this year, and Belarus is making its first Olympic appearance ever in this event. Belarus upset Brazil by seven points in a stunning overtime to win the berth during the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Women.

The team to watch in this group is Australia, who has been closing in on the gold ever since winning their first medal, the bronze in the 1996 Atlanta. In the next two Games Australia won the silver just behind the U.S., but the tide may have changed since the last Olympics, with Australia winning the gold in the 2006 world championship over a U.S. bronze.

Australia's "Opals" are led by their star center Lauren Jackson, a Sydney-native who currently lives in Seattle and stands tall at 6'5". She may quite possibly be the world's best female basketball player, but she is certainly the biggest Aussie talent ever in this sport. In the 2006 world championships she led all players in scoring at 21.3 points.

Jackson and other Australian players suit up for various teams abroad throughout the year, and recently many have led their teams to their respective championships. Jackson took the Seattle Storm to capture the WNBA title in 2004, just as fellow Olympic teammate Penny Taylor did for the Phoenix Mercury in 2007. Jackson also brought Spartak Moscow to the EuroLeague championships in 2006 and 2007. Besides being league MVP in the WNBA in 2001 and 2007, Jackson has also played professionally in South Korea, where she was the league MVP in 2007. Basically, Jackson has topped the women's basketball leagues of many of the countries Australia will face during these Games, which puts her team in a very competitive position.

Russia should not be overlooked either, especially with the welcome addition of American Becky Hammon。 Although her achievements came close to Jackson's by being a runner-up for MVP in the 2007 WNBA season, Hammon was not offered a place on the U.S. squad and consequently chose to play for Russia, where she already was a member of CSKA Moscow and had been granted citizenship. Russia also placed above the U.S. in the 2006 world championships with the silver, so they hope as well to top their 2004 performance and make a run for the gold in Beijing.

Although Brazil lost in a surprising overtime blowout to first-time Olympics competitors Belarus, they were the 2008 South American FIBA champions and 4th place in the Athens Games, so they will be as hungry as Russia and Australia to improve upon their last Olympics standings. Latvia's squad boasts Anete Jekabsone-Zogota, named the best female basketball player in Europe in 2007 for her performance with Moscow Dynamo, a player to be reckoned with who could also make for interesting competition in group A.

After group A all face each other in round robin play, the top 4 teams will proceed to the quarterfinals, where they will each face a team from group B. Once they advance to the semifinals and beyond, teams from within group A may have a chance to square off again. While it seems like Australia and Russia are shoe-ins for quarterfinals slots and beyond, Brazil's loss to Belarus in the qualifiers shows that the rest of the spots are up for grabs and the opportunity for exciting play is high in group A.

Group A will start battling when Australia faces Belarus in the Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium at the Wukesong Culture and Sports Center on August 9th, the first day of competition in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games.