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U.S. women basketball win six consecutive Olympic gold medal

Xinhua, August 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The United States won the women's basketball gold medal for the sixth consecutive time after beating Spain 101-72 at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games here on Saturday.

The U.S. wrapped another lopsided game for their 48 straight Olympic wins since the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Dated back to the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Team USA won eight gold medals out of nine Olympic outings except the 1992 Barcelona Games, when they finished the third.

Spain, which won the berth of Olympics through a qualifying tournament, played a brave first quarter to lead several times before the U.S. called it 21-17.

The suffocated defence proved the key for success as the Americans extended the lead to double digits when they kept rotating the squad to build up the pressure on both ends.

The U.S. won all eight games by an average margin of 37.3 points in Rio.

Leading 49-32 at the break, the U.S. easily dug an over 20-point hole for Spain by 56-34 two minutes into the third quarter. With experience and depth of the bench, the victory was beyond doubt for the U.S. at that time.

Diana Taorasi and Lindsay Whalen led the U.S. by 17 points each with five Americans scoring by double-digit numbers. Alba Torrens scored 18 points for Spain.

The U.S. bench, as usual, scored 55 points to beat their opponents' 23. Endit