FIBA – Opals and Americans are favorites heading into Women’s hoops event

BEIJING (Olympics) - China are hosts while Team USA and Australia are the gold medal favorites but one team that no one is discounting is Russia.

The major story of the summer has been the addition of American guard Becky Hammon to Russia’s national team.

A CSKA Moscow player, Hammon accepted citizenship earlier this year and that paved the way to her Olympic dream.

Hammon was her new country’s best player at the FIBA Diamond Ball in Haining, but even her presence failed to inspire a lethargic and out-of-form Russia side that captured last year’s European title.

“We hope we can find the chemistry before our first game in Beijing,” said Russia’s versatile Svetlana Abrosimova.

Russia, the country that upset United States in the semi-finals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Brazil, take on Latvia on the first day in Beijing.

The Latvians have got Ieva Tare in their group despite the veteran forward having suffered a dislocated elbow at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Madrid.

Tom Maher’s Chinese go up against Spain and are in the spotlight with hopes of reaching the podium sky high following the national team’s title of the 2008 Beijing Basketball Test Event.

In that championship game, China upset an under-strength United States to stir the emotions of the nation that is staging the Olympics.

But the three-time defending champions USA showed up in Haining last week for the FIBA Diamond Ball for Women and won against Latvia, Russia and Australia to send out a loud message that they mean business.

World champions Australia lost but were nevertheless impressive in the final along with FIBA World Championship MVP Penny Taylor and provided plenty of evidence that they can go all the way.

“We’ve got a long way to go before we see them again,” said Taylor after scoring a game-high 19 points in a 71-67 defeat to Team USA. “I look forward to seeing them again.

“We need to fine tune our offenses and go to the boards.”

The United States have been boosted by the return of Lisa Leslie, with the veteran back in the national team and seeking a fourth Olympic gold medal.

Leslie said after a sensational 14-point effort: “We are really happy and everything is going to plan but we need to win when it matters.”

Team USA’s first hurdle to clear is a big one against European juggernauts the Czech Republic.

Jan Bobrovsky’s team reached Beijing via the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Women in June and they have plenty of experience in the big games.

Belarus will present an intriguing first test for Australia after surprising everyone in their first EuroBasket Women appearance last year in Italy when they took the bronze medal.

The team has lost forward Svetlana Volnaya to injury this summer, however, they were not that impressive in the qualifying event in Madrid.

Rank outsiders meet in the other two games on day one with African champions Mali facing New Zealand and Brazil taking on Korea.

The losers of those two contests will find it very difficult to advance to the quarter-finals with much harder preliminary round games awaiting them.

FIBA