Basketball - Team United States

General
The US women's team arrive in Tokyo as defending Olympic champions and looking to extend their run of six consecutive Olympic gold medals. They have won eight out of the last nine Olympic gold medals, with the only 'blemishes' on their record a silver medal behind the Soviet Union at the inaugural women's tournament in 1976 and a bronze medal in 1992 after a semifinal defeat to the Unified Team. The US did not take part in the 1980 Games in Moscow.

From the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta to the 2016 Games in Rio, the US team's narrowest gold medal match-winning margin was an 11-point victory over Australia in 2004, but otherwise they have won every Olympic final by more than 20 points. At the 2016 Games in Rio they thrashed Spain 101-72 to claim gold, at the end of a campaign where their lowest winning margin was a 19-point semifinal triumph over France.

The US are also the reigning World Cup champions, having won the past three consecutive editions and eight out of 11 tournaments from 1979 to 2018.

The only team to have consistently come close to challenging the US women's dominance this century is Australia. The two sides contested the Olympic gold medal match in 2000, 2004 and 2008, as well as a semifinal in 2012, with the US team emerging victorious on every occasion. The two rivals did not meet at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, but they did contest the final of the 2018 World Cup, where once again the US team proved too strong.

Like their male counterparts, the US women tend to send a mix of college players and young talent to continental tournaments. At the Pan American Games they claimed a second consecutive silver medal at the 2019 edition in Lima behind champions Brazil. The US team have not won gold at the Pan Ams since 2007, but did claim gold at the 2019 AmeriCup in their first appearance at that tournament since 2007. They also won the 2021 AmeriCup title with a 74-59 victory over hosts Puerto Rico.