Paris 2024 Summer Olympics
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U.S. men ousted from 3x3 Olympic tourney, finish pool play 2-5
PARIS -- The U.S. was eliminated from the 3x3 men's basketball competition on Sunday at the Paris Olympics after finishing 2-5 in pool play while playing its last five games without star Jimmer Fredette."We fought hard, I think we just ran out of gas playing with three," Canyon Barry said. "It's so tough ... my heart still breaks for Jimmer. It's just not fair that someone of that high character has to go through this."
Fredette was brought in to boost the team after it failed to qualify for the Tokyo Games, and his play helped the U.S. enter these Olympics as the No. 2 seed. But he sustained a lower extremity injury in the team's second game and didn't play again.
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The U.S. opened pool play with four losses. Huge games by Barry, the son of Basketball Hall of Famer Rick Barry, lifted the team to wins over France and China before the Americans were eliminated Sunday with a 21-6 rout by the Netherlands.
The U.S. is left wondering what could have been if Fredette wasn't injured.
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U.S. beats China to make semifinals of Olympic women's 3x3
PARIS -- The United States, Germany, Spain and Canada advanced to the semifinals in women's 3x3 basketball at the Paris Olympics on Saturday.The defending champion U.S. team and Canada won play-in games Saturday night. The U.S. beat China 21-13, and Canada posted a 21-10 win over Australia.
Dearica Hamby had nine points and five rebounds to lead the U.S. It was the team's fifth straight victory after an 0-3 start to the tournament.
She went 3-for-3 on 2-pointers, and her last one closed it out with five seconds to play.
Rhyne Howard, left, and Dearica Hamby celebrate after Saturday's win. Buda Mendes/Getty Images
"We're happy but obviously we've still got two more games that are more important," Hamby said. "But we just keep getting better each game. This might have been our best offensive performance, fluidity and just like open baskets, the easiest shots we've gotten all tournament."
Cierra Burdick reflected on the work it took to get to this point and the chance to help the U.S. repeat as gold medalists.
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China hands U.S. first loss in men's 4x100m medley relay
NANTERRE, France -- China stunned the U.S. by winning gold in the men's 4x100 medley relay on Sunday, a race the Americans had won at every Olympics other than the boycotted Moscow Games in 1980. The medley relay was added to the program in 1960. The winning team included Qin Haiyang and Sun Jiajun, who were both among the nearly two dozen swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance at the Tokyo Games but were allowed to compete after a Chinese investigation ruled that they consumed food that had been contaminated. The result is sure to stir more hard feelings from other nations that feel the Chinese got away with cheating.But the real star of the Chinese team was Pan Zhanle, who had previously set a world record while winning the 100 free and powered away from American Hunter Armstrong on the anchor leg to touch in 3 minutes, 27.46 seconds.
The Americans had to settle for silver in 3:28.01, with France taking bronze in 3:28.38 to give Léon Marchand his fifth medal of the games to go along with four individual golds.
British star Adam Peaty, whose team barely missed out on a medal by finishing fourth, blasted a system that allowed the Chinese swimmers to compete at the Olympics.
"If you touch and you know you're cheating, you're not winning, right?" Peaty said. "As an honorable person, I mean, you should be out of the sport, but we know sport isn't that simple."
Peaty noted that after the initial revelations, additional reports surfaced of more positive tests in the Chinese program that went unpunished. The New York Times reported last week that two more Chinese swimmers had tested positive, including one 2024 Olympian, for a banned substance in 2022 but were cleared by Chinese officials to compete.
"I think we've got our faith in the system, but we also don't," he said. "Whoever's in the race, I expect in my head that it has to be fair for them to be there. We did our best job as a team to do that, and it may have been [worthy of] a bronze. Who knows?"
Caeleb Dressel, who swam the butterfly leg for the Americans, said prior to the Olympics that he didn't have faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency or his sport's governing body, World Aquatics.
With a silver around his neck, he seemed resigned to the belief that nothing will change.
"I don't work for WADA," Dressel said. "There's nothing I can do."