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Stephen Curry was thinking about this two years ago, after winning his fourth NBA title with the Golden State Warriors. The only thing left for him to win was Olympic gold.
And in the ultimate moment, he made sure that the medal would be his.
The U.S. is atop the international men’s basketball world once again, after Curry scored 24 points — all on 3-pointers — and led the way to a 98-87 win over France in the final at the Paris Games on Saturday night. It was the fifth consecutive gold medal for the U.S. and the 17th in 20 all-time appearances for the Americans at the games.
“You just stay confident, stay present, and don’t get rattled by the moment,” said Curry, who had 17 3-pointers in his last two games, starting with nine against Serbia to get to the gold-medal game.
Added U.S. coach Steve Kerr: “Steph earned this.”
Curry made four 3-pointers in the final 2:43, including the one that just sealed the win with 1:19 remaining. It put the U.S. up 93-84 and he skipped down the court letting out a yell, shaking his jersey so everyone could see the “USA” across the front.
If that wasn’t enough, one more followed with about 30 seconds left — with the “go to sleep” move where he puts his hands on the side of his face.
Good night. Game over. Gold won. Again.
“For me to get a gold medal is insane, and I thank God for the opportunity to experience it,” Curry said.
Kevin Durant — the first four-time men’s gold medalist in Olympic basketball history — scored 15 for the Americans, as did Devin Booker. LeBron James, wearing metallic gold shoes that needed no explanation, scored 14 for the U.S. as he won his fourth Olympic medal and third gold.
“Super humbled that I can still play this game,” James said. “Played at a high level, played with 11 other great players and a great coaching staff, and went on and did it for our country. It was a great moment around.”
For the second consecutive Olympics, the French had to watch the Americans hold up U.S. flags in celebration after the title game. The French lost to the U.S. 87-82 in Tokyo three years ago, and this one was down to the final minutes.
That is, until Curry took over.
“I think we might be the only team in the world whose fans are ashamed of them if they get a silver medal,” said Kerr, the Golden State coach whose two-summer run with the U.S. ends with a 21-3 record and Olympic gold — 11-0 this summer. “That’s the pressure that we face. But our players, and you saw Steph, they love the pressure. They appreciate this atmosphere and they were fantastic.”
Victor Wembanyama, the NBA Rookie of the Year for San Antonio in his first Olympic final, was brilliant for France, scoring 26 points — the second-most ever against the U.S. in a gold-medal game, one behind the 27 that Drazen Dalipagic scored for Yugoslavia in 1976.
“I’m learning,” Wembanyama said. “And I’m worried for the opponents in a couple of years.”
Wembanyama covered his face in a towel afterward as the Americans celebrated. Guerschon Yabusele scored 20 for the hosts.
“For sure, it’s a disappointment because we expected we could do it,” France coach Vincent Collet said. “But we have to recognize at the end that they are better. We are very close ... When they make fantastic shots, that’s the difference.”
The U.S. lead was 14 early in the third, looking poised to pull away. But the offense quickly went cold and when Evan Fournier connected on a 3-pointer with 3:05 left in the quarter the lead was down to 65-59 after a 12-4 run by the hosts.
And with a chance to go up double digits headed to the fourth, a big U.S. blunder gave France another jolt of momentum. Anthony Edwards and Durant got their signals crossed on a pass that led to a turnover, Nando De Colo scored to beat the buzzer and the U.S. lead was only 72-66 going into the final 10 minutes.
It got as close as three. No closer, thanks to Curry. He hit four 3-pointers in a span of 2:12, the last one of them a bit of the circus variety, and they all immediately went into Olympic lore.
“A big shot to put us up six. That kind of settled everything,” Curry said. “And then the rhythm, the avalanche came, and thankfully the other three went in. That was an unbelievable moment. I’ve been blessed to play basketball at a high level for a very long time. This ranks very high in terms of excitement and the sense of relief, getting to the finish line.”
It was the eighth time in Olympic history — and Sunday’s women’s final between the U.S. and France will mark the ninth — that the home team got to play for basketball gold.
Home teams are now 5-3 in those games, and 2-1 on the men’s side. The U.S. men and women both won in 1984 and 1996; the women of the Soviet Union won in 1980, while Australia’s women lost to the U.S. in 2000 and Japan’s women also lost to the U.S. at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
For James, it was one more thing for the neverending list which is his legacy. For Durant, it was history with four golds. For Booker, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum, and Bam Adebayo, it was a second gold. For Jrue Holiday, it was a second gold to match his wife — soccer great Lauren Cheney Holiday — for the family lead. For Derrick White, Tyrese Haliburton, Joel Embiid, and Edwards, it was the first Olympic title.
“This has been an amazing experience, a beautiful experience,” Durant said.
And for Curry, it was a long time coming after he wasn't available for previous Olympics. The Americans couldn’t have been more thrilled that he was there for this one.
“I was smilin’, cheesin’, having the best time of my life,” Curry said.
He likened it to a Game 7 on the road, which it basically was. He’s had enormous success in those moments: a 50-point outburst to lead Golden State past Sacramento in 2023, and a 27-point, 10-assist, nine-rebound performance to win a do-or-die game in Houston in 2018.
And now, this.
“It’s right up there with all of the greatest games of his career,” Kerr said. “The shot-making was just incredible. But under the circumstances, on the road, in Paris, against France for a gold medal, this is storybook stuff. But that’s what Steph does. He likes to be in storybooks.”
At just the right moment, Mallory Swanson yelled at teammate Sophia Smith not to go near the ball as it came through.
Swanson knew Smith was offside. But Swanson wasn’t.
“I was like, `Don’t touch it! Leave it, leave it leave it!’” Swanson said. “And then it was on me to put it away.”
With that 57th-minute goal, the U.S. women’s soccer team won its fifth Olympic gold medal by beating Brazil 1-0 in the tournament final Saturday at the Paris Games.
The Americans, who hadn’t won gold since the 2012 London Olympics, closed out an undefeated run to the title in their first international campaign under new coach Emma Hayes.
Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher preserved the win with a one-handed save on Adriana’s header in stoppage time at Parc des Princes. At the final whistle, the U.S. players celebrated as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” played in the stadium.
“We’ve grown so much,” said Swanson, who was making her 100th national team appearance. “And that’s really cool to me seeing that. We’ve grown on and off the field. And you keep probably hearing it — we’re playing with joy. We’re having so much fun and I’m just so happy.”
The result is more heartbreak for Brazil and its iconic star, Marta. The six-time World Player of the Year has never won a Women’s World Cup or an Olympics. This is expected to be her last major international tournament.
It was the third victory for the United States over Brazil in an Olympic final. The Americans also beat the Brazilians in 2004 at Athens and four years later in Beijing.
The United States also won gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — the first time women’s soccer was played at the Olympics — and in 2012 at London.
Brazil has never finished better than runner-up at the Olympics.
“I’m very emotional. It’s been a dream of mine to be in this position,” said Hayes, a London native. “I have to thank my dad because he’s the one who pushed me to this point to be able to come and coach an unbelievable group of players that have received me so well and taken on board everything I have asked. They are tremendous people players and role models. Yeah, I love them.”
- Three years ago in Tokyo, the U.S. had to settle for the bronze medal. The Americans were knocked out in the quarterfinals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
Tom Cruise, former U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe, and her fiance, former WNBA player Sue Bird, were among those in the crowd.
Marta was playing in her sixth Olympics. Her first was in 2004 — when she was just 18 — which ended with a silver. But she started on the bench after a two-game suspension for a hard foul on Spain’s Olga Carmona in the team’s final group match.
Hayes was hired as coach of the U.S. team in November but she didn’t join the squad until May so she could finish out the season with Chelsea — guiding the Women’s Super League squad to its fifth straight title.
Hayes was tasked with turning around a U.S. team that crashed out of last summer’s Women’s World Cup earlier than ever before. Despite her short time with the Americans, she quickly fostered chemistry within the young squad, particularly between forwards Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman, and Swanson.
The trio scored 10 of the 12 U.S. goals in France. Naeher and the U.S. defense allowed just two goals.
“I think we’re on this steady climb,” Crystal Dunn said. “We know winning a gold medal is obviously amazing and we’re all going to celebrate and soak this in. But there’s life after this Olympics. I think we are going to embrace where we are but I think it’s important that we realize there’s so much more that we can do, and having Emma obviously now for the long haul is going to be incredible.”
Brazil had the best chances early. Ludmila was alone in front of the goal in the second minute but her shot went straight into Naeher’s arms. Ludmila appeared to score in the upper far corner in the 16th minute but was offside.
Naeher kept the game scoreless at the break by punching away Gabi Portilho’s shot in first-half stoppage time.
Brazilian midfielder Vitoria Yaya was carried from the field with an injury early in the second half.
The U.S. continued to threaten after Swanson’s goal. Smith nearly scored on a break in the 66th but her attempt went wide.
Lindsey Horan smashed a free kick into the wall in the 82nd after Tarciane fouled Smith just outside the box.
Hayes made one change to her lineup for the final, starting Korbin Albert in place of Rose Lavelle. It was the second youngest U.S. lineup to start a gold medal match, with an average age of 26.7. The average age of the team that started the 1996 final was 25.8.
Brazil had finished third in its group in France, earning one of two third-place spots in the knockout round.
The U.S. advanced to the final with a 1-0 extra-time victory over Germany in Lyon, where Smith scored the lone goal. Brazil earned its spot with a wild 4-2 victory over Women’s World Cup champion Spain.
Germany went on to win the tournament’s bronze medal with a 1-0 victory over Spain in Lyon on Friday.
Asked if the U.S. team was confident it would ultimately wear gold medals in France, defender Naomi Girma was succinct.
“I mean, we always believed,” she said.
An independent arbitration court vacated a last-minute inquiry in the Olympic gymnastics floor exercise final that boosted the score of U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles, and the sport's governing body officially moved a Romanian athlete into third place — a series of events Saturday that put Chiles' bronze medal in question.
Judges in last Monday's final in Paris had originally given Chiles a score of 13.666, which put her in fifth place behind two Romanian gymnasts, Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, both of whom had scored 13.7.
Because Chiles had been the last to perform her floor routine, Barbosu, who held a tiebreaker over Maneca-Voinea, began to celebrate when the initial score came through, thinking she had won the bronze instead.
But Chiles' coaches believed the judges had underscored her, and they filed an inquiry shortly after the initial score came through. The judges agreed and revised her score up by a tenth of a point to 13.766, moving her into third place over Barbosu. Chiles was awarded the bronze medal.
The next day, the Romanian gymnastics organization filed a protest with the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, which oversees Olympic gymnastics, seeking to have the inquiry overturned.
In a decision Saturday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said that Chiles' inquiry had indeed been filed too late. Gymnastics rules require that inquiries be filed within one minute; Chiles' inquiry was filed after one minute and four seconds, the court said. With the inquiry vacated, her score was reverted to 13.666.
Soon after, FIG officially updated the results of Monday's competition, moving Barbosu into third and Chiles to fifth.
It is unclear what will happen to the bronze medal awarded to Chiles.
The Romanian protest had also asked that all three athletes be ranked together in 3rd place by FIG, to share the bronze — a request that FIG apparently denied.
In a joint statement, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee said they were "devastated" by the CAS ruling.
"The inquiry into the Difficulty Value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was filed in good faith and, we believed, by FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring," the statement said.
In a post on her Instagram, Chiles said she was broken-hearted. "I am taking this time and removing myself from social media for my mental health," she wrote.
"Throughout the appeal process, Jordan has been subject to consistent, utterly baseless, and extremely hurtful attacks on social media," the USA Gymnastics and USOPC statement said. No athlete should be subject to such treatment. We condemn the attacks and those who engage, support, or instigate them."
A runaway win in one relay and another that was oh-so-close. A long-awaited celebration for France and a high jump competition that felt like it would never end.
What tied it all together on a frantic final day of Olympic track and field at the Stade de France was the most familiar sight of all: Americans on the medal stand, over and over again.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas brought the curtain down on track by romping to a win in the women’s 4x400 relay Saturday for America’s 34th overall medal at the track and 14th gold. Thomas was part of the U.S. gold-medal win a night earlier in the 4x100 women’s relay.
Turning the race into a laugher on laps 2 and 3, the 400-hurdles and 200-meter gold medalists helped the U.S. finish more than 4 seconds ahead of second place and only .1 second off the world record set by the USSR in 1988.
The winning time: 3 minutes, 15.27 seconds.
“I think this generation of track and field is just on a different level,” said McLaughlin-Levrone, who now has four gold medals in four events (to go with six world-record runs) over her career. “Everything is improving, including us, including our technique, including how we prepare. I don’t think anything is impossible at this point.”
In another race involving a different sort of .1-second margin, American hurdle gold medalist Rai Benjamin edged out 200-meter champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana in the men’s relay.
“I calculated that run very well, to a ‘T,’” Benjamin said. “I have a really good, high track IQ on people and how they run and how to do a quick time, so I didn’t have to get out too hard. Let’s just save it up to come home.’”
Two more close races lead to American gold and, finally, a medal for France
Fittingly, the final day of a track meet full of close calls and surprises featured two more races decided by .01 seconds -- an 800-meter win by Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi and a 100-meter hurdles victory for American Masai Russell.
Russell edged out Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France. A heartbreaker, maybe, but it marked the home country’s first and only medal of the track meet and brought as big a burst of cheers as anything on an evening where eight finals were held.
“I want to celebrate with the French public because they supported me and pushed me throughout all these Olympic Games,” Samba-Mayela said.
Wackiness in the high jump pit and a tiebreaker for $50,000
Over in the high jump pit, there were moments when it looked like the gold wouldn’t be decided before Sunday’s closing ceremony.
New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr and America’s Shelby McEwen each missed three times at 2.38 meters, triggering a jump-off at the same height for the title.
They both missed, which started the bar moving down. McEwen missed. Then Kerr missed. Then McEwen missed again — the 11th straight between the two.
Finally, Kerr cleared 2.34 meters, peeled himself off the mat, ran a big semicircle into the javelin landing zone — thankfully long out of service by that point — collapsed on his back and covered his face with his hands.
In one of the more memorable moments from the last Olympics, the top two jumpers had finished in a tie, agreed to share the gold medal, and then hugged it out to celebrate. This time, there was an unprecedented $50,000 first prize on the line that chipped away at that beautiful Olympic spirit.
Was the $50K on McEwen’s mind when he decided to go for the win, not the tie?
“Most definitely,” he said. “I’ve got a family to feed. So of course, it was.”
Best medal haul for US track in modern-day Olympics
McEwen’s loss still helped the U.S. reach 34 medals - the most for any country at a non-boycotted Games since the early 20th century when there were more events and fewer nations involved.
The 14 golds are the most in a non-boycotted Olympics since Bob Beamon and Tommie Smith led the U.S. to 15 wins in 1968.
For such a dominant performance, it felt only fitting that McLaughlin-Levrone had a role in the final act.
The 25-year-old, who owns the world’s fourth-fastest time in the 400 to go with her latest world record in hurdles, ran her leg in 47.71. That was .91 seconds faster than the next fastest woman in the field, Femke Bol, who took the Netherlands to silver.
That McLaughlin-Levrone lightly clipped feet with Thomas when they passed the baton between the second and third laps felt like a distant memory — long forgotten by the time the “Star-Spangled Banner” played for the last time in the last medal ceremony of the night.
With around 200 meters to go, “Gabby and Syd kind of started walking on the track and they had to pull them back,” said Shamier Little, who ran the opening leg. “We were kind of celebrating. Of course, anything can happen.
“But it wasn’t going to happen.”
Wanyonyi of Kenya wins men’s 800 in another race decided by .01 second
In a speedy men’s 800, Wanyonyi beat Canada’s Marco Arop by .01 seconds in a photo finish, finishing in 1:41.19, only .28 off the world record.
American Bryce Hoppel’s national record of 1:41.67 was only good for fourth.
Ingebrigtsen gets a win, this one in the 5,000
Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the 5,000 meters in a relatively drama-free race after the much-hyped 1,500 four nights earlier against Britain’s Josh Kerr turned into a disappointing fourth-place finish.
Ingebrigtsen won in 13 minutes, 13.66 seconds to add this title to wins at the last two world championships.
Kenya’s Ronald Kwemoi finished second and Grant Fisher of the U.S. finished third.
Japan wins the only medal of the meet — a gold in javelin
Haruka Kitguchi won Japan’s only medal of the meet — a gold one —with a season-best throw of 65.80 meters. She’s the first Japanese woman to win a medal in any throwing event at the Olympics.
Lin Yu-ting fought to remain poised and calm throughout the Paris Olympics boxing tournament, even when it seemed like most of the chattering world was maligning her, misrepresenting her, and questioning the very nature of her being.
The flyweight shut off her social media, kept up her training, and focused on earning one proficient victory after another.
But when she heard Taiwan’s anthem while standing on the top podium at Roland Garros with a gold medal around her neck, Lin suddenly broke down in cathartic sobs.
She cried not only for the tumult of the past two weeks but for a lifetime in boxing that culminated in this gold-medal victory over previously unfathomable challenges.
“I saw images flashing, and I thought about the beginning of my career when I started boxing,” Lin said. “All the difficult practices, the times that I got injured, the competitors I fought against. All these images flashed in my head. There are times of great pain. There are times of great joy. I cried because I was so touched.”
Lin completed her domination of her division Saturday night, following Imane Khelif’s lead a day earlier by giving a glittering response to the intense scrutiny faced by both fighters inside the ring and around the world over misconceptions about their womanhood.
Lin routed Julia Szeremeta of Poland 5:0 in the final, capping her four-fight unbeaten run through Paris by winning Taiwan’s first Olympic boxing gold medal.
On Friday, Khelif won Algeria’s first women’s boxing medal with a decisive victory in the welterweight division final, beating Yang Liu of China.
Both fighters persevered through an avalanche of criticism and uninformed speculation about their sex during the Paris tournament to deliver the best performances of their boxing careers.
“Every fight is not easy,” Lin said. “Winning 5-0 might seem easy, but behind that is a lot of practice and hard work.”
World leaders, celebrities, and online critics attempted to make it about something other than the boxers’ years of work.
The detractors either questioned their eligibility to be in women’s competitions or falsely claimed they were men, forcing both women to take unwanted starring roles in a debate over changing attitudes toward gender identity and safety regulation in sports.
Lin said she minimized this potentially enormous distraction by managing to avoid learning about it almost entirely. She also said she’ll speak with her team about whether to take legal action against some of the claims.
“As an elite athlete, during the competition, it’s important to shut myself off from social media,” she said. “That’s extremely important. Some of the noises or some of the news articles, of course, I heard some of the information through my coach, but I didn’t pay too much mind to it. And I was invited by the IOC to participate in the Games. This is what I focused on.”
Both fighters were disqualified last year from the world championships organized by the International Boxing Association, a Russian-dominated governing body that has been banished from the Olympics since 2019.
The IBA said they failed an eligibility test for women’s competition, but it has struggled to defend its claims since they resurfaced at the Olympics, occasionally giving contradictory information or saying they were asked not to give details by the boxers’ national federations. That didn’t stop the criticism and speculation from proliferating online, stoked by Russian disinformation networks.
The two boxers’ detractors included former U.S. President Donald Trump, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. Their presence in Paris became a weapon in a largely Western culture clash over eligibility for women’s sports.
Khelif said a gold medal would be the “best response” to the uproar. Both fighters got the last word in Paris, although the chatter and scrutiny could persevere for the rest of their careers.
Lin hadn’t been as dominant or as dynamic as Khelif in Paris, but she steadily rolled toward the final as the top seed in the women’s 57-kilogram division. The 5-foot-9 (1.75 meters) Lin is usually taller and more slender than her opponents, and she uses those advantages to pick them apart with skill and angles, rather than strength or power.
That’s exactly what Lin did to Szeremeta after taking the ring Saturday to loud cheers and dozens of Olympic-style Chinese Taipei flags waving in the stands, with millions more cheering back home.
Lin used her long left jab from the start, keeping the 20-year-old Szeremeta at bay and setting up combinations. Lin’s hands were quicker and more active, and she dominated the first two rounds with a wealth of clear blows landed.
Lin cruised to victory, artfully dodging a few of Szeremeta’s too-slow punches without countering in the final minute. Szeremeta had a bloodied face and a welt under her right eye when the bout ended.
After having her hand raised and holding open the ropes for Szeremeta’s departure in a typical boxing gesture of sportsmanship, Lin went to the center of the ring, knelt on the Paris 2024 logo, and touched her head to the canvas.
After leaving the ring, Lin gleefully gave a piggyback ride to one of her coaches. Before taking the medal podium, Lin touched her hand to her heart and raised it high above her head.
The 29-year-old Lin has fashioned a solid career as a top Olympic-style boxer, winning world championships in 2018 and 2022. She reached the semifinals of last year’s world championships before the IBA disqualified her and stripped her of a bronze medal.
While Khelif has been outspoken in the face of criticism, Lin was more circumspect in her public handling of the uproar. Her quarterfinal and semifinal opponents in Paris outwardly showed moderate sportsmanship, but they also made it clear they felt Lin should have been ineligible to compete.
But Lin has been strongly backed by the Paris crowds and by her home country — including its former President, Tsai Ing-wen, who posted a message of support on social media.
“I feel incredible,” Lin said. “I want to thank everyone who has supported me, and thanks to my team and everyone in Taiwan. They gave me the power.”