As the last day closes in on this gargantuan sports festival, the home nation is making a late run for glory on the basketball court. Yesterday in the Superdome, the Opals, Australia's women's teams scythed down Brazil to set up an inevitable gold medal clash with the USA. The Boomers, Australians men's team, will slug it out for the bronze medal with Lithuania, bulldozed by the simmering dream team.
Australian athletes have been striking gold in a bewildering variety of sports over the past two weeks. Whenever a final looms, patriotism soars. They embraced their taekwondo champion with fervour. They threw a nationwide party after a surprise placing in synchronised diving. They found a new hero in Jumpin' Jai Taurima.
But the fanatical whooping behind the Opals has been of a more slow-burning nature. Although a relatively recent force in the women's game, qualifying for the first Olympic games in 1984, the Australian women captured bronze in Atlanta and in the subsequent years have enhanced their squad with a number of rising stars. Chief among these is Lauren Jackson, a six-foot five-inches centre from Albury. Basketball was Jackson's destiny. Born to two free-spirited international hoops stars of the 70s, she began playing competitively at 10 and by 16 was a nationally-recognised ball player, already a starter for her country.
At 19, she is regarded as among the best players in the world, with perfectly tutored inside discipline and a guard's shooting touch. Against Brazil, she was constantly shadowed by the smaller South American players but still cut loose in the second half to nail a turn-around jump shot, a three-pointer and a drive that put her team beyond reach.
"Afterwards, I just kept thinking, `oh my God, we are here, finally, at the place I have been trying to get to my whole life'." The home crowd love her and has been praying for a showdown between their main weapon and the USA's majestic Lisa Leslie.
"Yeah, yeah, the Americans," groaned Jackson after the defeat of Brazil. "We are really gonna go out and do our best and give them a bloody good run for their money. Because we know we can beat them. We've played them before and lived with them and if we put two halves together, well, they better watch out."
If the Australian women have laid their hope in youth, the men's team have turned to one of the game's old stagers. Andrew Gaze, pale and grey haired, was the flag bearer for the host nation at the opening ceremony and there were suggestions that he would have only a peripheral influence in his final tournament. Over the past week though, Gaze has been on fire.
Against Italy in the quarter-finals he made a series of beautiful shots and intelligent plays that pushed his country through by three points. Italy's awestruck young guard, Andrea Meneghin, said: "Mr Gaze did something out of the ordinary."
Not that this was a bolt from the blue: Gaze, 35, has been eclipsing money men such as 'Zo Mourning and Vince Carter each game and is the leading scorer in the tournament, with an average of 21 points per game.
"It was incredibly intense and yet the two teams had a real respect for one another. I cannot think of a better way to play basketball," he said.
He hit 22 in the second half and was swamped by his team-mates, including Michael Jordan's former team-mate Luc Longley.
The Gaze Olympic history is rich. Lindsay Gaze played for the Boomers in 1960, '64 and '68, coaching the 1980 and '84 teams. Andrew made the 1984 team and has been there since. Against France in the semi-final, he broke the long-standing record of Brazilian Oscar Schmidt for most Olympic games played (39).
The Americans regard basketball gold as their preserve. However, the men's team has not, as yet, looked quite as formidable as their predecessors in Atlanta and Barcelona. This weekend the USA women and the Lithuanian men will come up against a wall of unreasonable, thunderous and stubborn Aussie expectation. It may not be enough to change the run of history, but is should make for a great last party.
