Washington (AFP) – Women’s NBA star Brittney Griner and US college phenomenon Caitlin Clark were among 14 players named on Thursday by USA Basketball to next week’s women’s national team training camp.
Five-time Olympic champion Diana Taurasi is among nine Olympians set to participate in the session on April 3-5 at Cleveland, Ohio.
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Griner, a 6-foot-9 (2.06m) center, helped the Americans win gold at Rio and Tokyo. She was held in a Russian prison for most of 2022 after being found with a small amount of medicinal cannabis. She was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout and made her WNBA return last year.
Clark, who earlier this month became the all-time US major college scoring leader for men or women, will attend depending on her University of Iowa team’s fate in this weekend’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s “March Madness” tournament games. Clark has helped three US junior national teams win international times, most recently in 2021.
The USA women’s basketball team will seek an eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Paris later this year, what would be the 10th overall in 11 tries dating to 1984.
Eight members of the US women’s squad that won a fourth consecutive world title in 2022 will also be on the camp roster, including Shakira Austin, Sabrina Ionescu and Tokyo Olympic gold medal team members Ariel Atkins, Chelsea Gray, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson.
The Americans have lost only one game in the past 10 Olympics, falling in a 1992 semi-final to the Commonwealth of Independent States when they settled for a bronze medal.
The US women’s Olympic squad will be coached by Cheryl Reeve, coach of the WNBA Minnesota Lynx.
© 2024 AFP
