Athletistic / Basketball. No one will dispute the statement that basketball is one of the most popular team sports. However, the dominance of one country over all others is so great that some consider it a local sport, devoid of international interest. The situation is similar at club level. In basketball, there is an absolute pinnacle – the NBA, and all other tournaments cannot even come close in popularity to the North American league. Moreover, the gap is so great that no one seeks to challenge the NBA, as was the case in hockey at the dawn of the formation of the KHL, which managed to compete with the NHL in the first years of his existence.

For greater clarity, you can take the history of the basketball tournament at the Olympic Games. Before the 1972 Games in Munich (Germany), gold medals were reserved exclusively for one team: the American team. It is noteworthy that the Americans did not bring the strongest team to the Olympic Games, but limited themselves to sending students to the tournament. In Munich, the USSR national team dealt the first blow to the noses of the Americans. This legendary match between Soviet and American basketball players is still debated today, feature films and documentaries are dedicated to it and the most memorable moments of past Olympic Games are recounted.

In 8 years, the United States will once again fail to win Olympic gold. But this time, politics will be the issue. The American authorities refused to send their team to the 1980 Games, organized in Moscow. In their absence, the Yugoslav team became the winner of the tournament for the first time in its history. But four years later, the status quo was restored when the American team, with the young Michael Jordan on board, beat all their rivals and regained the gold medals. But just four years later, the Americans suffered a painful defeat, which changed the balance of world basketball and forced them to take international tournaments more seriously.

In 1988, the Olympic Games were held in Seoul (South Korea). There was a tendency towards rapprochement in relations between the USSR and the USA, stories of boycotting the Olympics were a thing of the past, and therefore all the strongest had to reach the Korean capital. The American basketball authorities then had no doubts about their exclusivity and again sent a student team to the Olympic Games. But the USSR national team produced the strongest generation of basketball players. This team was led by Alexander Yakovlevich Gomelsky.

Photo source: Alexandre Vilf / “Sport-Express”

During the Olympic cycle, the Soviet team became European champions (1985), and already in 1986 they made a lot of noise at the World Championships. At the world championship held in Spain, the USSR won silver medals. The semi-final of this tournament with the participation of Soviet basketball players was forever etched in the history of world sports. Gomelsky’s team played against the Yugoslav national team. A minute before the end of the fourth quarter, the USSR team lost to the Yugoslavs with a difference of 9 points, but in the end they managed to eliminate this gap and achieve a legendary victory in overtime. In the final, the Soviet basketball players caused a lot of problems for the American team, but in the end the Americans still managed to win, with a minimum margin of only 87:85.

Before the Olympics in Seoul, the USSR national team had a big problem: the main star of the team, center Arvydas Sabonis, was far from ideal. The 23-year-old giant did not play for almost a year before the 1988 Olympics due to a serious Achilles tendon injury. The presence of a healthy Sabonis played a huge role in the game of the USSR national team, because the prospects of Soviet basketball players at these Olympics largely depended on his game. The legendary Alexander Gomelsky guided the Lithuanian to the tournament and managed to bring him to the peak of his form when it was most needed.

Photo source: Alexandre Fedorov / “Sport-Express”

It should be noted that this team included many future legends of world basketball. There were Lithuanians Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis, Valdemaras Homicius and Rimas Kurtinaitis, Russians Sergei Tarakanov, Valery Tikhonenko and Viktor Pankrashkin, Ukrainians Alexander Volkov, Alexander Belostenny and Valery Goborov, Latvian Igors Miglinieks and Estonian Tait Sokk.

Soviet basketball players began the tournament in Seoul with a defeat against the Yugoslav national team (79:92). But despite this failure, Soviet basketball fans were optimistic, because Sabonis spent almost the entire game on the court. The next opponent of Gomelsky’s team was the Australian national team. The USSR team immediately took control of the match and brought it to a crushing victory (91:69). The most productive player of the game was Rimos Kurtinaitis, who scored 21 points. Sabonis scored 17 points and stood out even more on the court. Then the USSR national team defeated Puerto Rico (93:81) in a tough match with overtime, then showed the hosts of the 1988 Olympic Games by defeating them with a score of 73:110 and finished the group stage with a hard-fought victory against the CAR team (88:78). It is worth noting that Sabonis did not play against the Puerto Ricans, and in the remaining two matches Alexander Gomelsky sent him to the field for training and fitness.

The USSR national team improved from match to match, which was an ideal formula for success in a short Olympic tournament. In the quarterfinals, the USSR team defeated the Brazil team in a tough match. Defender Oscar Schmidt shone among the Brazilians in those years. The incredible sniper managed to score 46 points in the Soviet team’s basket, but his partners could not maintain this pace and could not cope with the team actions of the USSR . And in the semifinals the USSR national team faced the American team.

The USSR and USA national teams were preparing for the first face-off at the Olympics since the final of the 1974 Games in Munich. The American team, despite the absence of NBA stars, was still very solid. For example, the role of center in this team was played by David Robinson, who in 1996, during the era of Michael Jordan, could become the most valuable player in the NBA. This match was supposed to be the highlight of the Seoul Olympics and the basketball players from both teams did not disappoint.

Photo source: usopm.org

According to Marciulionis, Alexander Gomelsky came up with an extremely interesting plan for this game:

— When the United States started to put pressure on us, we had to get the ball out with the help of Sabonis’ screens. The Americans should not have been allowed to organize quick counterattacks, and especially to score from above. When the American team has such an opportunity, its players seem to grow wings. Well, during a positional attack, our defenders either pulled the opponents on themselves and passed the ball under the hoop, or returned the ball to the released snipers for a throw.

In an incredibly tense match, the USSR team managed to win with a score of 82:76. Kurtinaitis scored 28 points, Marciulionis managed to add 19 points to the team’s treasury, and Sabonis played brilliantly against Robinson on defense and scored a respectable 13 points himself. After this success, the USSR national team was already unstoppable and confidently defeated Yugoslavia in the final (76:63), taking revenge for the defeat in the opening match of the Games.

In fact, this Olympic tournament ended an entire era of basketball. At the next Olympics, players of the national teams of the USSR and Yugoslavia in 1988 represented different teams, and the defeat of the American team four years later forced them to bring the legendary Dream Team to Barcelona. Alexander Gomelsky and his guys started a new history of Olympic basketball.

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic


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