History

When the Olympic Games get underway in Tokyo in 2020, it will herald the 20th edition of basketball being played at the prestigious event.

It is a competition which the USA have dominated across the entire 80 years and will arrive in Japan as both the current holders, and having been crowned as Olympic champions an absolutely eye-popping 15-times.

They will search for a seventh title in the last eight editions of the Games, with only Argentina having famously broken the winning run that was initiated in 1992 by the revered 'Dream Team'.

The success of Argentina in Athens in 2004 remains one of the biggest Olympic stories to date, as Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola provided the inspiration to write an unrivaled chapter in their country's basketball history.

Only four nations have ever won Olympic gold, with the other sole winner being Yugoslavia, who triumphed in Moscow in 1980 as Drazen Dalipagic and Dragan Kicanovic stole the limelight.

The Soviet Union finished as Olympic champions on two separate occasions, the first coming in Munich in 1972, which ended the run of the USA having snapped up gold at the first seven events and remains the only time they have ever been beaten in the Final. The city of Seoul witnessed a second title for the Soviet Union in 1988.