By Steve Keating
PARIS (Reuters) -The French women’s basketball team swept past Germany 84-71 on Wednesday and into the Paris Olympics semi-finals riding the same wave of national pride that carried the men to the final four.
A day after helping lift their men to victory over Canada, another raucous flag-waving crowd poured into the Bercy Arena determined to do the same for the women, each basket bringing a rafter rattling roar.
Mission accomplished, French supporters can now plan for Friday when Les Bleues will face Belgium with a place in the gold medal game on the line.
“There’s always a little bit of stress but the fact that we didn’t crack under it feels great,” said France’s Gabby Williams. “Now we can kind of breathe a little bit easier, not too much. But it feels great to get to the semis.”
Earlier, Belgium delivered a quarter-final surprise booking their final four place by taking down unbeaten Spain 79-66.
Australia also advanced to the semi-finals, breezing past Serbia 85-67 and now await the winner between defending Olympic champions United States and Nigeria who play later on Wednesday.
France and Germany got their contest off to a scrappy back-and-fourth start before the Olympic hosts went on 7-2 run to end the first quarter followed by 6-0 burst to open the second and take control 29-19.
Now fully fuelled by the boisterous audience, France stepped up the pressure increasing their advantage to 45-33 at the break. The hosts then put Germany on the ropes with another 7-0 run coming out of the intermission that effectively put the contest out of reach.
Marine Johannes led France with 24 points but it was a tenacious defence that made the difference, neutralising Germany’s big weapon Satou Sabally.
Sabally, who was second in scoring during group play averaging 21.7 points per game, was held to just 10 points including just two in the first half.
In contrast, Belgium’s big guns delivered in the big moment with the tournament’s top scorer, Emma Meesseman, bagging 19 points and pulling down nine rebounds to help send Spain to their fourth loss in five Olympic quarter-finals.
Beaten by Serbia at the same stage of the 2016 Rio Games, Australia made sure there would be no repeat by methodically building a 26-19 first-quarter advantage and never let it go.
Getting retribution on Serbia is one thing but getting the better of the mighty U.S., who are expected to ease past Games debutantes Nigeria, would be quite another.
The U.S. are riding a 58-match winning streak chasing an unprecedented 10th gold medal and eighth in a row with much of that success coming at Australia’s expense.
Australia’s Opals have won five Olympic medals in women’s basketball but have yet to claim gold, losing to the U.S. in three consecutive finals (2000, 2004 and 2008).
“Most of us play in the WNBA, we face these players day in, day out,” said Australian coach Sandy Brondello. “They’re human. They’re basketball players.
“Anything can happen at one time.”
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Paris; additional reporting Vincent Daheron. Editiing by Ken Ferris, Toby Davis and Bill Berkrot)
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