SAINT-DENIS, France — Rai Benjamin and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone exchanged an embrace in the mixed zone Friday night. The two have something new in common. They are both Olympic champions.

A day after McLaughlin-Levrone dazzled in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, Benjamin did the same on the men’s side for Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Benjamin cleared 10 hurdles around the track and won Olympic gold in the men’s 400 hurdles, running a season-best 46.46. It’s Benjamin’s first ever Olympic gold medal. He lost to Norway’s Karsten Warholm and earned the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics. This time, though, Benjamin got revenge.

Warholm took second, clocking at 47.06 and Brazil’s Alison dos Santos ran a 47.26 to take the bronze medal.

‘It feels great to be honest. I got the (expletive) done,’ Benjamin said. ‘I got it done.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Warholm, Benjamin and dos Santos have led the charge in the men’s 400 hurdles in recent years, and the Norwegian set the world record in the event in 2021 (45.94). Warholm, Benjamin and dos Santos won gold, silver and bronze, respectively, at the Tokyo Olympics, but it was Benjamin’s time in Paris. 

‘Three years, it has eluded me for so long, this gold medal. To get it done here in this fashion at the Olympic games in front of my friends and family and in front of everyone just means so much to me,’ Benjamin said. ‘I finally got it done. To do it in front of my mom, my dad, my aunts and uncles and my friends back in LA – that one was for them.’

Benjamin has an opportunity to win a second gold medal in Paris, and fourth career Olympic medal, on Saturday. USA TODAY Sports asked Benjamin if he’s going to be part of Team USA’s 4×400-relay squad, and he replied with an emphatic answer.

“Hell yeah,’ Benjamin said with a smile. ‘We got something for them (Saturday).”

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PARIS – When American climber Brooke Raboutou and Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret made their climbing debut at the Paris Games, the roar from the crowd was deafening. Raboutou smiled toward Garnbret and said, “second Olympics, baby.” 

On the wall, the two-time Olympians are at the top of the competitive climbing circuit. Raboutou is No. 2 in the world, and Garnbret, the reigning Olympic gold medalist, is No. 1, according to the International Federation of Sport Climbing. Off the wall, they hold the title of friends. 

“We still want to beat each other, but at the end, we support a lot each other and wish the best for each other,” Garnbret said after the Olympic boulder semifinals.

In March, Raboutou and her coach, Chris Danielson, spent two weeks in Slovenia with Garnbret, working out on her spray wall (a densely packed wall with climbing holds) and training with Garnbret’s coach, Roman Krajnik.

‘The relationship amongst all the countries is very supportive, and a lot of people, a lot of sports, don’t really fully understand that,’ said Josh Larson, the U.S. Olympic boulder and lead team manager. ‘We’re just like, yeah, this is our culture. This is just where we came from in climbing.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

“It was an incredible learning experience,” said Raboutou at a Team USA summit in early April. “We’re both there to work really hard and push ourselves and have a good atmosphere.” 

In those two weeks in Slovenia, Raboutou’s confidence improved. “Training with one of the best and knowing that Brooke is also one of the best, that culmination of the two of them being together in that atmosphere brought a lot of confidence to Brooke going into the (Olympic Qualifying Series),’ said Larson.

Garnbret secured her spot in the Paris Games almost a year ago, but Raboutou had a more difficult journey. She eventually earned Team USA’s second spot with her overall win at the O.Q.S., only a month before the Games began.

Larson sees the impact of Raboutou’s training playing out here in Paris. Both Garnbret and Raboutou qualified in the first and third positions, respectively, for the Olympic boulder and lead finals on Saturday. Raboutou is searching for her first Olympic medal, and Garnbret is looking to defend her gold. No matter the outcome, their friendship won’t change.

‘You don’t see it in too many other sports, and I’m really grateful to see that as a parent,’ said Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou, Raboutou’s mother. ‘It tells me that between myself and Janja’s mom, we’re doing something right because they’re celebrating sports together.’

Written opposition to the proposed settlement of the proposed multi-billion-dollar settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences that is pending with a federal judge in California grew on Friday.

Two separate sets of attorneys made filings asking U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to deny preliminary approval of the proposed settlement. Taken together, the arguments combined to raise myriad issues about the deal, including whether it undervalues the claims, discriminates against female athletes, creates another illegal cap on compensation and the money that would go to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

On Thursday, attorneys for plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit concerning Ivy League schools’ refusal to award athletic scholarships filed an opposition to the proposed settlement that seeks a carve-out for their claims.

Meanwhile, also on Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a initial briefing schedule for Houston Christian University’s appeal of Wilken’s rejection of its bid to become involved in the case as an objector and to have the proposed settlement thrown out. Houston Christian, a member of the Football Championship Subdivision’s Southland Conference, claims it would adversely by the proposed settlement and that neither it nor its conference had any input into the deal.

The 9th Circuit’s briefing schedule comprises dates in late October and November.

Wilken has scheduled a preliminary-approval hearing for Sept. 5, and lawyers for the plaintiffs involved in the proposed settlement have until Aug. 16 — next Friday — to respond to the new opposition filings.

Who filed oppositions on Friday

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in another athlete-compensation lawsuit against the NCAA and the Power Five that has been allowed to proceed in a federal court in Colorado made one set of arguments

Attorneys representing six current or former women’s rowers made the other.

What would happen under the proposed settlement

On its most basic level:

There would a $2.8 billion damages pool that would be funded over 10 years by the NCAA and its Division I schools and conferences. A heavier financial burden for this would be placed on the Power Five schools, but the impact would be felt by all schools.

Division I schools would be able to start paying athletes directly for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL), subject to a per-school cap that would increase over time and be based on a percentage of certain athletics revenues.

NCAA leaders would seek to engineer rules changes eliminating longstanding, sport-by-sport scholarship limits and replacing them with a new set of roster-size limits.

While athletes would continue to have the ability to make NIL deals with entities other than their schools, the settlement would allow the NCAA to institute rules designed to give the association greater enforcement oversight of those arrangements.

The damages pool would include money that would go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers for their fees and costs. According to documents filed in connection with the settlement proposal, they will ask the judge to approve up to $495.2 million in fees, just under 18% of the total, plus ‘out-of-pocket expenses.’ 

The arguments raised against the proposed settlement

The damages pool undervalues the claims: Lawyers involved with the case in Colorado say that while the proposed settlement values the claims they are pursuing at a little over $1.8 billion, they “obtained an independent, preliminary estimate from a respected economist” that places the value of these claims at $24.3 billion. A submission from that economist was included among their filings.

The attorneys leading the case in Colorado initially brought their proposed class-action case on Nov. 20, 2023, on behalf of former Colorado football Alex Fontenot.

In their complaint, they wrote that their case “takes aim at the full cut of television and other revenues would receive in a truly open market” rather than the one that exists under the NCAA’s rules.

They are asking for an injunction that would bar any NCAA rules that prevent such an open market – basically the creation of a formalized pay-for-play system in which athletes can be paid by their schools for their athletic services. They seek to represent all athletes who played for an NCAA Division I team in any sport from roughly 2020 through a judgment in the case. And they are seeking damages covering money that they allege all of those athletes would have received — the more than $24 billion they cited Friday.

On Dec. 7, 2023, the plaintiffs lawyers who are leading two earlier cases involved in the proposed three-case settlement that is pending before Wilken filed a similar case in California on behalf of three athletes, including now-former Duke football player DeWayne Carter. It sought an injunction against the NCAA’s athlete-compensation rules and a narrower set of damages: One that would cover athletes in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball who played for schools in Power Five leagues — including the 12-school version of the Pac-12 — or Notre Dame.

As part of legal maneuvering with the proposed settlement, the Carter case was consolidated with one of the two earlier cases, a complaint brought on behalf of plaintiffs led by former Arizona State swimmer Grant House, and a new, revised complaint broadened the range of athletes who would be entitled to damages, so it is now similar to one set up under the Fontenot case in Colorado.

However, the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case in Colorado, this week filed yet another lawsuit against the NCAA. This one concerns athletes who have received partial scholarships under the NCAA’s sport-by-sport scholarship rules. For most sports, the scholarship limit equates to a pool of money that can be allocated to many members of a team.

This new suit alleges that, absent the scholarship limits – which would abolished under the proposed settlement — athletes would have received more scholarship money. As such, there should be a damages award to athletes who have been impacted by this. Friday, the lawyers involved with this case placed that amount at likely $300 million – and they want those claims exempted from the proposed settlement.

The per-school cap on future NIL payments is illegal: Both groups of attorneys that submitted filings on Friday covered this. Those involved with the cases in Colorado argued that the proposed settlement “swaps one arbitrary cap for another arbitrary cap. … Further the plan unfairly excludes several important types of revenue ..,that should be included … Settlements are creatures of compromise, but future athletes should not have a new artificial cap forced upon them unless it goes through collective bargaining.”

The lawyers representing the women’s rowers wrote that: “Courts have repeatedly held that the NCAA has violated (antitrust law) in fixing compensation that student-athletes can earn…. Undeterred the NCAA seeks to continue to fix and depress the prices for student athletics” through the settlement.

The settlement discriminates against female athletes: The economic modeling for the $2.8 billion in damages is largely – though not entirely – underpinned on an analysis of the value of athletes’ NIL to live TV broadcasts and the value of different sports to TV contracts. The result is a proposed arrangement under which football and men’s basketball players will get a huge percentage of the damages money.

The lawyers for the rowers argued that “the NCAA’s failure to promote women’s sports depressed the value of female athletes’ NIL over decades … yet instead of compensating … the Settlement perpetuates the same inequalities it should remedy… By reinforcing wrongful gender inequities instead of remedying them, the Settlement is a major setback for efforts to achieve gender equity in college athletics.”

The fee arrangements for the plaintiffs’ lawyers: The attorneys for the rowers allege that the settlement’s “extreme preferential treatment of male football and basketball players suggests that Class Counsel pursued those groups’ interests to the near exclusion of of interests of other” athletes.

“The Settlement’s fee arrangement,” they added, “reinforces those concerns.” They specifically cited what they said is the proposed settlement’s inclusion of “$20 million as an ‘upfront injunctive fee and cost award’ ” that the NCAA and conferences agreed not to oppose. The arrangement, they wrote “raises the question of what Class Counsel bargained away to get it.”

PARIS — Helen Maroulis thought about leaving her shoes on the mat Friday, but she never got the sign she was waiting for that her wrestling career is definitely over.

“Yesterday I was like, ‘I’m leaving these damn shoes. I don’t care what happens, I’m throwing these things. I am leaving them on the mat,’ ‘ Maroulis said. ‘And then I just was like, ‘Well, God, I didn’t have a clear answer,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘

Maroulis became the most-decorated female wrestler in U.S. Olympic history Friday, winning her third medal when she pinned Canada’s Hannah Taylor 24 seconds into their bronze-medal match at 57 kilograms.

Maroulis, 32, won gold in 2016 (at 53 kg) when she stunned Japan’s three-time gold-medalist Saori Yoshia, and bronze in 2020 (at 57 kg) when she barely made it to the games after dealing with the aftereffects of multiple concussions.

She said she came into these Olympics expecting to win another gold, and was disappointed with her semifinal loss Thursday to Japan’s Tsugumi Sakurai, the eventual gold-medal winner.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

On Friday, Maroulis said she ‘balled my eyes out while I was cutting weight’ before realizing this was maybe how her career was supposed to end.

‘This time was probably the first time that I’ve really experienced heartbreak in that semifinals,’ she said. ‘I’ve never experienced heartbreak at the Olympics before, which is really, it’s a gift, but I think it’s also been a gift to experience this cause if I’m going to go into coaching, I think I’ll be able to empathize or understand that, whereas before I kind of, I didn’t. So this was one of the hardest things in sport to have to pull myself up from, but that means I put my whole heart and body and everything into it, so I don’t regret it.’

Maroulis said she will pray about her future in the weeks and months ahead and eventually will be led to a clear answer.

The last time she did that, before the 2021 Tokyo Games, she said she ‘felt like God said, ‘Hey, it’s whatever you want. This is the cherry on top if you want to keep going.’ ‘

‘And I was like, ‘Well, I work so hard to get healthy. Why would I stop now? Let me go,’ ‘ she said. ‘This time around, I’ve been praying a lot and I still don’t know yet, but there’s some other things that I want in life. I think there’s some things I need to do to take care of myself and my body, and it’s like I really love this sport. I love it. And I think I’m just, it’s not that I’m holding on because of anything competitively or accolade. It’s like I really do just love what I get to do and the way that I experienced God through that has just been really beautiful for me, but I know it’s going to come to an end at some point.’

Maroulis apologized to reporters as she got choked up when she talked, but said if this is the end of her career she’s leaving fulfilled.

‘It’s a dream,’ she said. ‘It’s so crazy. I’m so grateful. This is just a dream. I look back on my career and I’m like, I never would’ve thought as a young girl I could achieve this.’

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

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PARIS — The Olympics changed breaking. There’s no other way to describe it. 

And maybe not for the better, according to the United States’ Sunny “B-Girl Sunny” Choi.  

“Breaking for the Olympics has changed the way some people are dancing,” Sunny said after she was knocked out of the 16-person round-robin Friday. “I came in thinking I really wanted to be true to me, not compromise anything, and then just leave it all out there on the floor. 

“My generation of breakers, it was all about being unique, it was all about showing your personality and being true to who you are. That was my purpose coming here.” 

Somewhere along the way, Sunny said, that didn’t become the top priority for other dancers. With its debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics, breaking became, naturally, about winning. Impressing judges. Putting scores above the art. 

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Dancers were “jam-packing” rounds with moves, Sunny said. Whoever moved the most aggressively – power moves, they are called – for the longest typically won the judges’ favor. 

“There’s a lot of fluff in there,” Sunny said. “There’s a lot of basic moves.” 

Sunny said she has those types of moves at her disposal. Maybe she’s just old-school, she said. At 35, Sunny does what she wants and doesn’t listen to anyone. 

“I just choose not to do them because to me, they’re boring,” Sunny said. “I’ve already done them.

“Because it’s an art form, because it’s a very creative dance – or sport – it’s about finding yourself as a person, that personal development, that growth, and showing up for yourself.”

Over the decades, breaking has undergone its transitions. The younger generation always has new ideas, and the previous one typically stays rooted in the way it came up. 

Breakers adjusted their routines in the lead-up to the Games, so this came as no surprise, Sunny said. It’d been trending in that direction over the years at world circuit events, she said, and it’s a natural progression when high-stakes events – let alone an Olympics – are judged. She added that she wasn’t above doing the same thing at points during her career. 

“I just feel like now it’s about having fun,” Sunny said. 

Sunny said that Olympians from other sports were excited to meet the B-Boys and B-Girls in the athletes village. She’d previously had reservations about that because she feared they wouldn’t see them as equals. 

“It’s a community first,” Sunny said of breaking, “and then I think a sport second.” 

Snoop Dogg; breaking ‘different’ on Olympic stage; ‘great’ vibes

The party at Place la Concorde started with Snoop Dogg performing the pre-competition tradition at every Games event called the “les trois coups, s’il vous plait,’ which directly translates to “the three hits, please” (a celebration of France’s theater culture). 

Once a light rain came, however, Snoop bounced. But he did snap a selfie with all 16 B-Girls before the action.

The competition closely mirrored those from the Olympic qualifier series in recent years, the competitors agreed. 

“Of course, we know it’s the Olympics and it’s different,” said B-Girl India of the Netherlands, who finished fourth. “But I tried to keep it as normal as possible.” 

Australian B-Girl Raygun said that for World DanceSport Federation (the international governing body that oversees breaking) events, the Olympics stage wasn’t much different. Other events might have more space and time for breakers to “jam” and “cypher” on the side. But the athletes felt a bit more pressure and intensity given the higher stakes, she said. 

The vibe was “actually not bad,” American B-Girl Logistx said. The Olympic competition reminded her of the Red Bull BC One competition in New York in which she participated. She thought the crowd would be crickets for her since she was going against B-Girl Syssy, who represented France. But Logistx saw lots of U.S. support in the stands and connected with the fans; nonetheless, she still wished the crowd had more energy overall. 

Logistx said she isn’t privy to conversations behind the scenes but that there were drastic improvements compared to the qualifier series. “I love and I appreciate the work that everyone has done and the compromise that has happened,” she said. 

B-Girl Kate of Ukraine said she wanted to represent her country and be part of the historic event. “Now I’m here and the stage is great, people are great … everything feels good,” she said. 

A more athletic approach was required for the Olympic competition, Kate said. “Your stamina has to be way better than the regular events,” said Kate, the wife of U.S. B-Boy Victor Montalvo. “Just a more athletic, sport approach – more moves.” 

For Sunny, the competition felt like any other large-scale international event. “I’m not saying it wasn’t epic,” she said. “But I got up there and just felt comfortable and it felt very familiar.” 

Judging will always be question mark in breaking

Nine judges determined the results. They picked a winner for each round based on five criteria: technique, originality, execution, musicality, and vocabulary (the variety of moves, styles, and transitions). 

Judging is always subjective, Logistx said. She thought she smoked Nicka, the silver medalist from Lithuania, in the first round of their battle. She said she’ll have to watch the battle back to see if she agrees with the judges. 

“When I saw the votes I was like, ‘the (expletive)?’ ” she said. 

Sunny had no comment on the judges’ performances. She wasn’t that familiar with them, she said. “I don’t know the judges, so I’m not sure,” Sunny said. 

Improved music options helped B-Girls show out

One improvement universally noticed by the competitors was the music. During the qualifier series, the B-Girls said they struggled to find rhythms. Because of the musical restrictions placed on DJs, the beats felt foreign to them while dancing. 

That changed in Paris. 

“Now that we had no music restriction, I’m like, ‘I’m really happy about that,’ ” Logistx said. “It’s been a messy process, roller coaster, up-and-down, but I’m just so happy with what everyone fought for on this journey because I felt like the culture pulled through.” 

B-Girl Kate loves hip-hop and was happy there was more music she actually knew at the Olympics. Sunny said she didn’t necessarily love all of the songs played for her, but having classics and true hip-hop approved for competition made a huge difference and helped the dancers showcase their skill sets better. 

“It’s been better than some of the (other) events,” she said.

Follow Chris Bumbaca on social media @BOOMbaca

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PARIS — The summer of Spain continues. At the expense of France’s heart.

Less than a month after its senior team won the European championship, and 10 days after its Under-19 team did the same, Spain claimed the men’s Olympic gold medal Friday night in an epic final with France. With a raucous crowd on urging Les Bleus, France erased a two-goal deficit in the final 14 minutes of regulation, including the tying game in the last minutes of stoppage time, only to have Sergio Camello score twice in overtime to secure Spain’s 5-3 win.

It was the highest-scoring final ever, in both the men’s and women’s tournaments. It also gave Spain its second Olympic title, following its gold in 1992 when Barcelona hosted the Summer Games.

“We’re disappointed. We wanted gold,” France captain Alexandre Lacazette said. “But we’ve managed to get this medal for the French. We saw the atmosphere in the stadiums. I think it’s a bit early to realize that, but I hope by starting tomorrow, players will realize what we’ve achieved.”

That this final will be remembered as one of the best ever played, certainly in the Olympic tournament, was of little consolation in the moment. Same for the affection of the French fans, who waved flags and serenaded the players with “La Marseillaise” as they received their medals.

With Thierry Henry as their coach, Les Bleus had hoped to re-create the magic of the 1998 World Cup. France was both host and champion of that tournament, sparking euphoria throughout the entire country.

And for about six minutes, it looked as if this was going to be France’s day.

In the 12th minute, Enzo Millot took a shot that Spain goalkeeper Arnau Tenas tried to bat away. But instead of clearing the ball, it deflected back into the goal. Parc des Princes erupted, and a chorus of “Allez Les Bleus! Allez Les Bleus” echoed throughout the stadium.

But as so many countries have learned recently, Spain is simply too strong. In a 10-minute span, Spain tied the game, took the lead and scored an insurance goal. Fermin Lopez had a brace, and Alex Baena scored on a David Beckham-esque free kick.

“There were a few minutes during the first half in which we disappeared. And we paid a high price for that,” Henry said.

At halftime, Henry told his players that French fans had supported not only their team but also every French athlete during these Games. They filled stadiums, cheering and singing, and their energy was infectious. Draw on that, Henry told his players. They haven’t given up on you, so you can’t give up on yourselves.

With its two-goal lead, Spain was content to play defense in the second half. But France pressed. And pressed. And pressed some more. There was a growing feeling that something was about to break and, finally, it did.

In the 79th minute, Baena was whistled for a yellow card for a foul just outside the box. Michael Olise whipped the ensuing free kick toward the goal and Maghnes Akliouche was credited with touching it into the net. Replays showed he might not have actually touched it, but the details are irrelevant.

France was back in the game and the enthusiastic crowd roared even louder.

Then, during a corner kick in the 89th minute, Juan Miranda wrapped both arms around Arnaud Kalimuendo. French players howled in protest and a chorus of boos rained from the stands. Those jeers gave way to a deafening cheer when the referee signaled the play was being reviewed.

Within seconds, Miranda was given a yellow card and France was awarded a penalty. Jean-Philippe Mateta converted it in the 93rd minute.

“One super important thing for me, the team fought on the pitch,” Henry said. “At first I didn’t think this was a proper match, but it was. There was very little between us. You can’t say we didn’t fight.”

In the first half of overtime, France banged one shot off the crossbar and sent another into the hands of Spain’s goalkeeper. Surely, a goal was coming.

It was. Not, however, for Les Bleus.

In the 100th minute, France goalkeeper Guillaume Restes came off his line to try and stop a charging Camello. Without breaking stride, Camello chipped the ball over Restes and into the net. He added another just before the final whistle, latching onto a ball that Tenas had whipped halfway down the field and poking the ball past Restes.

When the final whistle blew shortly after, Spain’s players raced around the field in jubilation. France’s players looked bereft, their shoulders slumping and their heads dropping.

“It’s one of the biggest matches, emotionally speaking. This was my last match with this blue shirt,” said Lacazette, one of the overage players in what is a youth tournament for the men.

But Henry said he hopes his players’ disappointment will fade. They might not have won the gold medal, but they and all the other Olympians have won the hearts of the French people these last two weeks.  

In a country that has been fractured by politics in recent months, that alone is a victory.

“France is beautiful. When we’re all together and when we unite, it’s a wonderful sight,” Henry said. “We lost tonight but they kept singing.’

Their medals might be silver. To the French people, Les Bleus are the champions.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

PARIS — The game was a rout, seemingly over not long after it began. The final score was the United States 85, Australia 64, but the margin seemed bigger. 

The U.S. women’s basketball team, the most dominant team in any sport in the world, men’s or women’s, has now advanced to its eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal game. The Americans have won the previous seven, and there’s no reason to think they won’t win the eighth on Sunday.

So why were only 18 journalists hanging around the massive mixed zone in the bowels of Bercy Arena Friday evening to speak with U.S. head coach Cheryl Reeve after the game when the night before, for the U.S. men’s comeback over Serbia, the same area was packed? 

Why were there so many empty Olympic family seats, the best seats in the house, left untaken for the entire semifinal game?

Why, when this team is just so majestic, is there so little buzz about them at these Games? Why do heads turn for the track stars and the gymnasts and the swimmers and the U.S. women’s soccer team, but not for them?

And going back a couple of weeks, why, just before the Olympics began, did the U.S. men’s basketball press conference draw well over 100 reporters, while the women’s attracted perhaps 20 sitting in the first two rows?

Because USA Basketball left the woman who would have changed all of this at home.

If it wasn’t clear before, it certainly is now: Caitlin Clark should have been here. The attention this team should have had, the crowds, the interest — it’s not there because she’s not here.

USA Basketball had it within its power to give women’s basketball the most magnificent global platform it has ever had, and it failed to do so. Were Clark here, playing even five minutes a game, reporters would have flocked to see her. I’m thinking of the Brazilian reporter who asked me in the first week why Clark was not here because she wanted to see her and interview her. I’m thinking of the Australian journalist who said the same thing.

A lesson learned over and over during these Olympic Games is that cultural star power matters greatly in driving interest in certain sports, and with both Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky done competing, as well as many of the track stars, Clark would have still been playing, helping the many veteran standouts on the U.S. women’s team receive the attention they deserve. 

Having covered the U.S women’s basketball team in 10 Olympic Games before this one, I have seen this over and over again. The relative ghost town of a mixed zone Friday was so predictable; I wrote about this when Clark was passed over for the Olympics in early June and sure enough, it has happened. To get journalists from around the world flocking to a venue when so many other sports are going on, there has to be something more: a huge name, a personality, a storyline, something. USA Basketball had all that in Clark and decided not to use it.

We all know the arguments against putting Clark on the team. She will have many other chances to play in the Olympics. (To which I’ll add, hopefully that’s the case.) She needed a break, something that she said was true, but that’s a decision that was hers to make for herself, not USA Basketball’s to make for her. 

Then there’s the argument that she would have taken the spot of someone else, which of course is what happens every time a team is picked in any sport, from high school to the pros to the Olympics. 

And the gold-medal-winning reason for Clark to not be here for those who didn’t want her here: she wasn’t playing well enough in her first month in the WNBA. In addition to the fact that she actually was playing well enough while facing the toughest defense and most difficult schedule in the league, we now have women’s selection committee member Dawn Staley’s own words on the matter. 

“If we had to do it all over again,” she told NBC here in Paris, “the way that she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she is playing head and shoulders above a lot of people, shooting the ball extremely well, I mean she is an elite passer, she’s just got a great basketball IQ. …”

So to summarize, on the court, Clark, the WNBA’s assist leader, would have been a wonderful, fresh and exciting asset for the U.S. team. Off the court, she is the greatest draw not just in women’s basketball, but in all of women’s sports. When she plays, women’s sports outdraw men’s sports, as we saw in the spring when four million more people watched her in the NCAA women’s final than watched the men in their NCAA final. 

What would that have looked like here on the Olympic stage? Wouldn’t that have been something to see? Oh, what might have been.