The United States hammered home their domination of women’s basketball on Sunday by claiming the world title for the eighth time here.
The US, winners of the past four Olympic titles and unbeaten during these championships, recaptured the gold they last won in 2002 by beating hosts the Czech Republic 89-69 in the final.
“These last few days of competition have been incredible,” said US coach Geno Auriemma. “The second and third best teams in the world, Australia and Russia, were eliminated in the quarter-finals. No-one could have predicted that.”
He added: “The Czechs played with enormous passion and intelligence. To beat the Czechs at home makes this victory even more special.”
The Americans led all the way, holding a 12-point lead (40-28) two minutes before from the break, only for the hosts to claw back to just five points behind (40-35) thanks to the efforts of Hana Horakova (12 points, 5 passes) and Eva Viteckova (7 pts, 5 rebounds), buoyed by the vocal 6,000 crowd at the KV Arena.
The Olympic champions, however, reasserted their advantage three minutes after the break thanks to stalwarts Sue Bird (11 pts, 5 interceptions) and Diana Taurasi (16 pts, 2 interceptions) as they opened up a 20-point cushion that they maintained for the rest of the match.
The top US scorer was Angel McCoughtry (18 pts, 4 rbds).
“This entire tournament has been a dream for our team,” said Czech captain Horakova, the best player of the tournament.
“We fought all the way. We were beaten by Russia and Spain but we showed that we had a good team. We had huge support, that really helped us. This silver medal is an enormous reward.”
Czech coach Lubor Blazek hailed his side’s efforts as they achieved their best finish since 1971.
“This medal is a big success for us. The fact that we had the chance to play the best team in the world is reward for our work. We’re happy to have brought Czech basketball to this level.”
The only unbeaten team in the tournament, the US scored an impressive average of 96 points per match, and during their nine games held off their rivals by an average 35 points.
“This is probably the hardest competition to win with nine matches to play in 11 days,” said US player Diana Taurasi, a bronze medal winner in 2006.
Earlier, Spain claimed the bronze medal when they beat Belarus 77-68.
Defending champions Australia were eliminated in the quarter-finals by the Czech Republic and achieved their worst result since 1998 as they finished fifth after their 74-62 win over European champions France.
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