It was written in the stars: buoyed by the fervorous home crowd support, the men's and women's French basketball teams will be vying for the gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, both France teams will be running into the buzzsaw that is Team USA — the nation that has dominated the men's and women's game for quite some time.
This will be the first time in the history of basketball in the Olympic games that the men's and women's gold medal games will be featuring the same nations, as per ClutchPoints on X. The stage is set for there to be fireworks in the battle for basketball supremacy, as the crowd in Accor Arena will surely do its best to lift the home team and give France the boost it needs to shock the world.
Both France teams will be heavy underdogs in the gold medal game; this is more so the case for the women's side of the competition, what with Team USA having won gold over the past seven iterations of the Olympic games. In fact, they are currently in the middle of a 60-game winning streak — elite stuff.
Nonetheless, in a single-game format, anything can happen. Serbia showed in the semifinals that the Team USA men's roster can be pushed to the brink despite being led by the likes of LeBron James and Stephen Curry, and France will be looking to do the same — but finish the job this time around.
Team USA and France battle for basketball supremacy
No one can ever question just how stacked the Team USA rosters are for both the men's and women's side of the ball. On the men's side, the team has four former MVPs holding down the fort (James, Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid), and the team is so deep that head coach Steve Kerr has even struggled to find a role for Jayson Tatum.
Meanwhile, the women's roster has three MVPs of their own (A'ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi), and they have plenty of capable snipers and playmakers that have made them such a coherent, well-balanced team. They have won all of their games by double digits or more, and the France women's team will have their work cut out for them to even pose a challenge to the United States.
The France men's team will be out for revenge after losing in the gold medal game in Tokyo in 2021; they lost that game in close fashion, 87-82, but they will be up against a much deeper USA team this time around.