Women’s three-player basketball won the Tokyo Olympics bronze medal, creating the second best result in Chinese basketball history
International Online Report (Reporter Peng Yanyuan): On July 28th, the three-person basketball match of the Tokyo Olympics came to an end. The Chinese women’s team lost to the Russian Olympic team at 14:21 in the semi-finals, and finally defeated France 16:14 in the bronze medal match and won the third place. The American team won the championship in this project. Although not in the finals, the Chinese women’s team created the second best result in the history of China’s basketball Olympics in this new event of the tournament.
With 3 seconds left before the end of the game, China was only two points ahead of France. But it only takes a few seconds to make history. With the French player’s last-minute mistakes, the Chinese women’s three-person basketball team defeated their opponents and took the bronze medal in this event. The last time Chinese basketball reached the top four in the Olympic Games can be traced back to the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. That time, the Chinese five women’s basketball team finally reached the final and won the silver medal. Looking back on history, we can see that this bronze medal today is precious enough!
After the game, player Wan Jiyuan said: “I am very happy! I believe that the people of the whole country are as happy as we are! All the hard feelings are released at the end of the game. I am only happy now, and I want to be with us as soon as possible. Family, friends and teammates share this feeling.”
As a college league veteran, Wang Lili, who scored 9 points in the bronze medal match with the team’s highest score, was full of emotion-after all, this victory is only two or three hours away from their semi-final loss to the Russian Olympic team: “Of course we did. We want to compete for the championship, but the facts are in front of us, and we have to accept it. Although we lost the last game, we made adjustments quickly in this one. Winning the bronze medal is our greatest affirmation!”
After winning the bronze medal, coach Xu Jiamin cried with joy. She confessed that the loss to the Russian Olympic team was indeed due to the gap between the strength and the opponents, and then there was no need to talk about any tactics in the face of France, because the players knew that this was the battle of beliefs and dreams: “Because of the epidemic, it was delayed for a year The injury of our core players has brought great difficulties and uncertainties to the team. And our Olympic goal is the same, we must quickly adjust ourselves to find and discover potential new players , To help them adapt to the three-player basketball game and prepare actively. There were many twists and turns in the whole process.”
The Chinese women’s three-person basketball team made history in 2019 and won the World Cup championship. But during the epidemic, the core players of that championship team, Wu Di and Jiang Jiayin, were not able to come to Tokyo due to injuries, and Zhang Zhiting was the only main player left. But in this case, the team still achieved the goal of winning Olympic medals! No wonder Xu Jiamin said repeatedly after the game that he was so touched by the players’ hard work!
The difference between three-man basketball and five-man basketball is actually very obvious-more chance, stronger confrontation, faster rhythm, and higher physical fitness requirements for players. The next step is to think about whether this bronze medal can promote the accelerated development of China’s three-person basketball. Xu Jiamin said that after joining the Olympic Games in 2017, this sport developed from street basketball, we began to conduct in-depth research on it. Next, we must establish a mature training system: “The competitiveness of this project is always changing. Always explore what its core competitiveness is. We have to think about what kind of players are competitive in this project, choose better players to participate, and systematically train them to help players and help The team, help our country get better results in the international arena.”
Precisely because of the complexity of the system, any achievements of a country’s collective ball events in the World Series are very valuable and have a strong significance for the development of competitive sports. Wan Jiyuan is very optimistic about the development of three-person basketball in China. She said: “Three-person basketball has always been well developed in our country. Now, most professional players are contacting and participating in three-person basketball. Five players and Three people, everyone wants it.”
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