Opals' bronze shines powerfully round world, says proud Maher

Opals basketball hero Michelle Timms hugs Robyn Maher after won a bronza medal against Uktaine. Pic by Tim Clayton

By Martin Blake, THE AGE, 6th August 1996

OPALS coach Tom Maher has pronounced Australia a world power in basketball after his team took a historic bronze medal in the women's Olympic tournament.

With the Boomers' fourth placing, the No 2 ranking of the junior men's team and the No 1 ranking for the junior women, Australia is the only nation among the 201 members of FIBA, world basketball's controlling body, with all four major teams in the top four.

The Opals, fourth at the world titles in Sydney two years ago, became the first senior Australian team to win a medal at a major championship when they beat Ukraine 66-56 in the bronze medal play-off at the Georgia Dome on Sunday.

"There's no harder gold medal to win at an Olympic Games than in women's basketball," Maher said. "It's just so hard to win. There are other sports that are up in that category, but none that are harder."

The Australians raced into the stands to hug partners and family members after the game against Ukraine, their emotions switching between relief and ecstasy, and tears streaming down their cheeks.

They were clearly the third-best team in the tournament behind the USA and Brazil but had been beaten by Ukraine in the preliminary rounds, and it remained to be seen whether they could get the job done.

The game was never pretty, but Australia had shot the ball so woefully (22 per cent) in the earlier match against Ukraine that the law of averages said they had to get better.

Michelle Brogan stepped up to have her best game of the tournament (19 points, 12 rebounds), Sandy Brondello came off the bench to score 13 points, and Shelley Sandie had a better shooting game (six of eight from the field for 11 points).

The Opals shot only 38 per cent from the field, but it was good enough, largely because Ukraine could not handle their trapping defences.

"We felt we could defend them to a losing score," Maher said. "We did that in the previous game, but our shooting percentage was ridiculous. That could never happen again."

For at least two of the Opals, Michele Timms and Robyn Maher, the win went part of the way towards erasing the pain of their defeat by Yugoslavia in the final second of the 1988 Olympic semi-final. Maher will not be playing when Sydney 2000 arrives, and Timms is 31 and no certainty to be there either.

Maher broke her hand immediately before the tournament and had a poor Olympics, but she was as ferocious as ever at the defensive end last night.

While Timms was subdued after a dazzling semi-final against the USA, she was entitled to an off day.

Brondello said the Australians were ready to celebrate. "We're partying," she said. "It's been pretty tough here. We've been away for a while and we've had so many highs and lows, but we've stuck together. That's what's special about this team."

Maher said the result reflected the quality of his team.

"Justice has been done. I just feel an unbelievable sense of fatigue and relief and I'm grateful that I'm not experiencing the agony of defeat. In my experience, a win like this is much more special than the one-off thing.

"It stays much longer than the few drinks you have at the celebration tonight. It's a feeling of self-satisfaction. I'm just happy for the people involved. It would have been a tragedy for the older girls to have got that close without getting a medal."

Maher said Australia had a sufficiently good system in place to maintain its standing in the basketball world.

"We've got a small population by comparison with the US, Russia, China, but really we're dead in the middle," he said. "If you want to play the numbers game, you won't get anywhere, because it's too easy an excuse.

"Basketball's not a minor sport in any of these countries and it's No 1 or No 2 in most of them. Australia is a wonderful sporting country and we're competing with these countries at their game. We're not playing the US at Aussie Rules. We're playing them at their game."

The US completed a double in basketball by beating Brazil comfortably in the women's final. Urged on by an enormous partisan crowd at the Georgia Dome, Lisa Leslie inspired the Americans to the gold medal.