Tag: wait

Wembanyama ‘can’t wait’ for France-USA showdown at Paris Olympics

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French basketball player Victor Wembanyama talks to the audience during a 5×5 France Olympics Basket Team Media Day in Paris, on June 27, 2024. (Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

PARIS — Victor Wembanyama plays against the top names in the game with the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA. He can’t wait to do the same for France at the Paris Olympics.

The NBA Rookie of the Year was asked Thursday about the potential for a France-USA final and possibly battling against LeBron James and Stephen Curry for the gold medal in his home city.

“I can’t wait to face them, it will be a very interesting matchup,” Wembanyama said at a news conference in Paris. “As a basketball player, it’s also a dream to play against Team USA and even against all those players, all those legends.”

READ: LeBron, Durant, Steph Curry lead Team USA for Paris Olympics

The U.S. beat France 87-82 in the final at the Tokyo Games three years ago.

This time, though, France has Wembanyama, who at 20 years old is making his Olympic debut. He’s the biggest star of the French team and at the center of attention, both on and off the court.

“I believe it’s the biggest competition for an athlete. But I’m going to approach it like everything else in my life: a sporting pleasure,” Wembanyama said.

For France coach Vincent Collet, it’s a sporting pleasure to have both Wembanyama and fellow NBA star Rudy Gobert, the four-time Defensive Player of the Year, disrupting opposing offenses.

READ: Paris Olympics: What to know and who to watch in men’s basketball

“If we want to reach our dream, we will have to display exceptional defense,” said Collet, who will be assisted by the newly appointed Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson.

France, which has never won an Olympic gold medal in basketball, was set to hold its first full practice on Friday in Paris. They have six warmup games in July.

The players will miss the opening ceremony of the Olympics on July 26 because France is scheduled to play its first game the following day in Lille, 220 kilometers (136 miles) north of Paris, where the group stage for the 12-team tournament will take place.

“Victor would be arriving in Lille at 3 or 4 in the morning if he were to participate in the ceremony. That would put a stop to his preparation for the Games,” said Fabrice Canet, a spokesman for the French national team.

France doesn’t know its first opponent yet — it will be the winner of the last qualifying tournament next week. The host nation then plays Japan and reigning world champion Germany in Group B.



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Playing in front of home fans, France is considered among the strongest teams alongside the U.S, Canada, Serbia and Germany.

After very long wait, Bolts now belong in company of PBA immortals

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Chris Newsome –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

At long last, the Meralco Bolts, perhaps the team with the most number of heartbreaks in terms of chasing a PBA championship, were able to write a happy ending to this story.

And it took one of the longest-tenured players in franchise history to deliver the winning shot that announced Meralco’s coming—after a 14-year wait—as a league immortal.

“There was a time that we really got discouraged because we kept failing and failing,” said Chris Newsome, whose baseline shot with a second left sealed the 80-78 victory and a 4-2 best-of-series win, that gave the Bolts the Philippine Cup, the most prestigious prize in the big league.

A missed three-pointer from June Mar Fajardo, who earlier tied the count at 78 with three seconds left with a desperate triple, sealed the upset as the Beermen failed to prevent the Bolts from finally completing their long chase of a crown.

But Newsome, who in his first of four previous Finals appearances in the 2016 Governors’ Cup didn’t convert a potential winning shot in Game 5, came through when it mattered, his promise to bring a title to the Meralco headquarters in Ortigas finally fulfilled.

“That’s a sign that if you work harder, you keep improving yourself and keep believing in yourself, good things will happen,” added Newsome, who before the season savored the taste of winning as part of Gilas Pilipinas’ run to the gold medal in the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Meralco not only won the PBA title for the first time, it also ended a 53-year search for a trophy in big-time basketball which it last tasted when Robert Jaworski led the Reddy Kilowatts to glory in the 1971 MICAA Open.

That league is long gone, and the championship trophy hasn’t been seen since the canteen at the Meralco gym was closed. Now, it can add the Jun Bernardino Trophy to its collection.

To say that the Bolts won it unexpectedly is fair. At one point, the team handled by coach Luigi Trillo and active consultant Nenad Vucinic was staring at an early vacation when a stunning loss to winless Converge dropped to 3-5 in the eliminations.

But Meralco persevered, snatching the third seed in the playoffs after denying San Miguel an elimination round sweep in Batangas City, before surviving old nemesis Barangay Ginebra in a semifinal that went the full seven games.

“That was the goal, to just overcome [Ginebra] and we were able to do that,” said Newsome. “I think that allowed us to gain that confidence to come out and give it a good run. We peaked at the right time.”

Newsome and Cliff Hodge, another Meralco lifer, played with a spirit never seen in the past. Allein Maliksi used negative press to fuel himself to vital performances in the last two games of the Finals, while Raymond Almazan, Bong Quinto, Brandon Bates, Anjo Caram and many others delivered.



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Tears of joy were all over the court when the final buzzer sounded as the Bolts finally reached the mountain top. INQ