ESPN Olympic Sports

ESPN's T.J. Quinn and Julie Foudy on Team USA's win over Spain, the men's marathon and their overall impressions of the 2012 Olympic Games:

LONDON -- I came to England almost three weeks ago to tell the stories of some of the greatest Olympic athletes in the world. Michael Phelps. Missy Franklin. Jordan Burroughs. But along the way, I fell in love. Not with a woman, an ideal, a plate of fish and chips or a frosty cold pint of London Pride.

No, I fell in love with a sport that I had somehow spent my previous 35 years ignoring. Team handball. With a free night on Wednesday, I curiously stumbled into the Copper Box to check out the game I vaguely remembered from high school gym class.

What I found was an athletic, fast-paced, up-and-down, in-your-face sport that had me jumping out of my seat and screaming in delight, much to the confusion of everyone else in my section. They had all seen this before. Me? Not so much. On at least three occasions I literally came out of my seat after watching someone jump in the air and then single- double- and triple-pump fake his way to a goal. And each time I was met with a look like, "What's wrong with him?"

So on Sunday, as the 2012 London Games came to a close, there was but one place I told my editor I wanted to be: In the basketball arena for the team handball final between Sweden and France. Here were two different countries I had never been to, speaking languages I didn't understand, playing a game I struggled to comprehend, and I ate it up. My version of culture, I suppose.

The match itself did not disappoint. I'll spare many of the details because, really, you don't care. I'll just tell you that France was forced to play the last minute and a half a man down due to a penalty but still held on to win 22-21. It was awesome.

So what exactly is it that I love about the game? Everything. It's water polo without water. Lacrosse without sticks. Soccer using your hands. Basketball with a 3-by-2-meter goal instead of a 10-foot-high hoop. The game moves fast, there's lots of scoring and getting shots off takes an incredible amount of size, skill and athletic coordination.

That's because the goal area extends in a D-like shape 6 meters out from the actual goal. It looks like a 3-point line. And the only person allowed in the area with the ball is the goalkeeper. No offensive player can shoot within this darkened zone. So what the offense does is pass back and forth and shuffle men in a pattern similar to a three-man weave, hoping to create a gap in the defense. When a shooter sees a gap, he charges to the line and right before he gets there he jumps, elevates and throws the ball often in excess of 100 miles an hour at the goalkeeper.

But while in the air, players will almost always pump fake and alter their shots to confuse the goalie. You think Michael Jordan's jump-one-way-and-shoot-the-other layup in the '91 NBA Finals was impressive? That happened like five times here Sunday. There was a French triple-pump. A Sweden player jumping straight into a French defender, maintaining his composure and unleashing a goal-scoring laser into the back of the net.

And the best part is that after almost every goal, there's a collision. Sometimes it's with another player. Other times it's with the ground.

And of course, this begs the question: What about the U.S.? Well, the U.S. didn't even qualify for London and hasn't competed in the Olympics since 1996 in Atlanta, where it qualified automatically. There, the men finished ninth out of 12 teams. The women eighth out of eight.

Why are we so terrible? Part of it is a lack of interest. Part of it is the USOC's reducing its funding for the U.S. team by 20 percent last year. And part of it is the fact that our country focuses on a different indoor court sport: basketball.

But I'm not sure I buy that popular last argument. I get it, we play baseball instead of cricket. We're more interested in American football than the world's game. And so it would make sense that we play basketball instead of handball. One or the other.

But what about the French? They won the gold medal here on Sunday in handball and had a 4-1 record during prelims in the men's basketball tournament before losing to Spain in the quarterfinals. Why can't we do both?

Because four years from now in Rio, I want to be in some rocking Brazilian arena, the crowd screaming at a deafening pitch, with the red, white and blue flying up and down the court trying to outmaneuver some Croatian goalie in my new favorite sport.

I know, I know.

Keep dreaming.

Some at-the-buzzer instant analysis from press row in London of Team USA's 107-100 win over Spain in Sunday's Olympic gold-medal game:

How it happened: Warning signs were there for the United States from Spain's very first possession, when Juan Carlos Navarro, someone Team USA has struggled to contain in the past, absorbed a foul from Kobe Bryant after draining a 3-pointer to start the afternoon with a four-point play.

A tone was quickly established.

Plagued by plantar fasciitis throughout the tournament, Navarro wound up scoring 19 of his 21 points by halftime, benefiting most from some classic Spanish offensive execution that had the underdogs within a point at intermission at 59-58. Making a high percentage of shots, finding holes in the U.S. defense with its ball and player movement and keeping turnovers down so the NBA All-Stars couldn't run, Spain seemed to have found a formula to shock the world.

And not even Marc Gasol's astonishing four fouls in the first quarter and a half would slow the Spaniards down. With Pau Gasol absolutely taking over in the third, looking every bit like the "beast" he proclaimed himself to be before the tournament started with 15 of 24 points, Spain stayed right there with its heavily favored foes well into the fourth.

Eventually, though, Team USA just had too much Kevin Durant, along with just enough from a foul-plagued LeBron James (including a big dunk and an equally huge 3 late) and some big fourth-quarter contributions from Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant, to grab the gold.

It was even closer than it was in Beijing in 2008, when Spain lost by just 11 points in the final, but the United States ultimately snagged its 14th Olympic gold medal in men's basketball.

How close? It's the second-closest Olympic final ever, second only to the USSR's infamous one-point defeat of the United States in the highly controversial gold-medal game in 1972.

What it means: If he really can't be talked into staying on as Team USA head coach, as it appears, Mike Krzyzewski will be leaving international coaching with a record of 62-1 ... and a tidy 50-game winning streak.

Since a semifinal loss to Greece at the 2006 Worlds in Japan, Team USA has indeed reeled off 50 consecutive W's in full senior national-team games, with 17 of those coming in the Olympics since a semifinal loss to Argentina in Athens in 2004 before the Krzyzewski Era began.

Player of the game: Durant had to be good to bump Pau Gasol (24 points, eight rebounds and seven assists) out of this spot.

And he was sensational.

Scoring a game-high 30 points even without his 3-ball going down as early and often as usual, Durant carried the Americans' offense like he did at the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey, combining with Paul in the fourth quarter to help the Americans weather the long stretch of crunch time it had to survive without James.

Play of the game: Two biggies from Paul, actually, helped saved Team USA in this one.

With James forced to the bench after picking up his fourth foul with 7:23 to go and Spain switching to a box-and-one to try to corral Durant, Paul produced a 3-pointer and a slick drive for a layup in succession, beating Sergio Rodriguez badly on the baseline on the latter scorer with a clever head fake at a time when the Americans were struggling for offense.

Paul delivered another driving layup late to beat the shot clock and Kobe Bryant finished with 17 points in support of Durant and James to help the Americans finally seal it and spark a flurry of joyous (and relieved) hugs in the final minute.

By the numbers: Team USA averaged 106 points per game in its eight victories, winning by an average margin of 32.1 points per game.

It was the third gold-medal meeting between the United States and Spain ... and the Spanish keep getting closer. The Yanks won by 11 points (118-107) in 2008 in Beijing and by 31 (96-65) in 1984 in Los Angeles.

No American had ever drained more than 17 3-pointers in an Olympic run before London 2012. But in these Olympics, Durant finished with 34 3s in eight games, with Carmelo Anthony (23) not far behind. So much for the fears that even USAB officials had during training camp in early July that this team might not have enough shooting on the roster.

LONDON -- The trademark bright yellow silk flower tucked into Alysia Montano’s hair was at odds with the tears welling in her eyes as she stood, hands on hips, describing her disappointment.

Montano said allowing herself to be boxed around the last curve of the women’s 800-meter final Saturday evening probably cost her a shot at a medal. Instead, she finished fifth in 1:57.93, more than a half-second off her personal best. Russia's Mariya Savinova won gold in 1:56.19.

“It’s been such a long road to get here,’’ said Montano, a four-time national champion in the event who competed for the University of California at Berkeley. “It feels like it took forever and now it’s here and gone.’’

The 26-year-old said she thinks she has a lot of growing to do as a runner and intends to get to work on that right away: “There’s no giving up. That’s not part of my DNA.

“Racing in the U.S., our women aren’t as aggressive. I love the opportunity to be able to race and get gritty with the best 800-meter runners in the world, but I still see myself making little errors, and in the last 200, I got stuck.

“I have some things to tie up. Fortunately, I’m going to have the time to do that.’’

Montano said she feels as if she has “been knocking on the American record (1:56.40) door for a while.’’ A foot injury forced her to withdraw after the first round of the 800 at the 2008 Olympic trials, but she came back to become national champion in the event in 2010 and 2011 and finished fourth at the world championships in the 800 last year.

ESPN's George Smith previews Sunday's men's basketball gold-medal game between the United States and Spain:

ESPN's T.J. Quinn breaks down Jamaica's world-record win in the men's 4x100 relay and the American women's 4x400 relay gold:

After winning the gold medal in decathlon, Ashton Eaton chats with ESPN.com's Jim Caple at the P&G House:

ESPN.com's Bonnie D. Ford and ESPN's T.J. Quinn discuss the women's 4x100 relay victory, the men's 4x400 relay silver and Morgan Uceny's fall in the 1,500-meter race:

LONDON -- The Olympic basketball competition has always been about one game, for the U.S. anyway: Spain. Lithuania is always a tough out. Russia has come on to have a very good team that nearly pulled off an upset Friday in the semifinals. But there’s one international game in the world right now that’s worth paying top dollar to see: Spain versus the United States.

The mission for each was to get through the semifinals with as little drama as possible to set up the gold-medal match (Sunday, 10 a.m. ET), and while Spain had plenty of drama in coming back to beat Russia, eventually the U.S. kept chucking its way out of trouble every time Argentina got close. You may think of the U.S. as being the most prolific 3-point shooting team in the world; in fact, some nights the Americans over many Olympic competitions have looked downright unfamiliar with it. But not Friday.

It was like a University of Kentucky game at Rupp Arena, what with the U.S. taking 42 3-pointers, more than half the team’s 81 shots, and hitting 18 of them in what turned into a 26-point rout. Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul kept firing and between made 3s, long rebounds turning into second-chance baskets and defensive rebounds turning into fast-break points Argentina couldn’t keep up. Even with Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola scoring pretty much the way they do every night in the NBA, Argentina just couldn’t fend off a team with too many great players.

Scola, after scoring 15 points but inexplicably grabbing only one rebound in 30 minutes, said, “I thought we could win the game … but they’re just a better team.”

Asked specifically why this team is better than others Argentina has played (and beaten) in U.S. competition, Scola said, “This team is more prepared to play in a different environment … with different rules, against a different style of play, with different referees.”

In other words, Scola was saying that while the U.S. team has often won international competitions, this version looks like the other international teams playing in this tournament, not a bunch of NBA players relying on talent to get them through a very different basketball experience.

And that brings us to Sunday’s gold-medal game. Spain is the team that has played like it’s under the greatest amount of pressure. Spain is the two-time reigning European champ. Spain is the No. 2 team in the FIBA World Rankings. Spain was the silver medalist in 2008 in Beijing. Silver here in London is acceptable; but losing to anybody other than the U.S. is not.

But now that they can presumably play freely Sunday, maybe Pau and Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka and Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro and Jose Calderon can do something special, which most of the basketball world would find unthinkable. Asked what’s different about this team from the one the U.S. beat by 11 in the gold-medal game in Beijing, Bryant said, “Marc Gasol. His confidence has improved so much. His skill level has improved so much from when we last played them. That’s a major difference.”

Indeed, Marc Gasol and Ibaka were young pups then, but have been through NBA playoff wars now, and big international tournaments. The Spaniards, when they have the Gasols and Ibaka on the floor, have the second most talented front line in the world. But Ibaka was a non-factor against Russia Friday afternoon, putting up just two points and two rebounds in six minutes. Spain’s coach, Sergio Scariolo, is always stingy with minutes for Ibaka -- a pattern he might want to change Sunday if his team is going to have enough talent on the floor to get after the U.S. After all, Russia outscored Spain in the paint 24-18 Friday, which Ibaka can change all by himself.

The thing is, after listening to the U.S. players after they beat Argentina, you get the feeling that they are taking the Spaniards very, very seriously, as if the gold-medal game is a Game 7 in the NBA and they’re facing very capable, very formidable opponents … which indeed is the case. When a team featuring LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant takes anybody that seriously, even a Spain team that might feel like it is playing with proverbial house money, any result other than a U.S. victory would be nothing short of a stunner.

Some at-the-buzzer instant analysis of Team USA's 109-83 rout of Argentina in the Olympic semifinals from press row in London:

How it happened: In the teams' third meeting in the space of 17 days, Argentina was within seven points at the break thanks to a Manu Ginobili corner 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer. The United States' lead was down to as little as four points early in the third quarter.

Of greater concern for Team USA: Argentina had the pace where it was hoping to keep it, with the tournament's heavy favorite on track to be held under triple digits after ringing up a whopping 126 points when the teams met Monday night in the Group A finale.

Yet it took only one decent surge late in the third quarter, with LeBron James at the heart of it as usual and supplemented this time by Kevin Durant, for the United States to hike its lead to 17 by the start of the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter that followed was an avalanche, sending Team USA to Sunday's title game in far easier fashion than anticipated and consigning Argentina's Golden Generation to a bronze-medal game against Russia in perhaps the final major international tournament for the quartet of Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola, Carlos Delfino and Andres Nocioni.

What it means: The route to reunite these teams was on the circuitous side, but we've indeed got the gold-medal game we all expected back when the United States arrived on British soil in mid-July.

Spain certainly took the long way to get there, losing games to Russia and Brazil in pool play and falling behind by 13 points early in Friday's first semifinal against the Russians despite Andrei Kirilenko's struggles trying to play with an injured quad. But now it's on: Team USA against the Spaniards on Sunday afternoon in a rematch of the 2008 game for the gold in Beijing that the Americans didn't seize control of until the last few minutes of the fourth quarter.

Team USA is 8-1 against Spain since the introduction of the NBA players into FIBA events in 1992. And in both of Spain's trips to the Olympic final -- in 1984 and again in '08 -- it came away with silver after losing to the Americans both times.

Player of the game: Stop us if you've heard this one before.

LeBron James, anyone?

Kobe Bryant had 13 points in the first half, Carmelo Anthony uncorked one of his trademark Team USA scoring sprees with four 3s in the fourth quarter to finish with 18, while drained four 3s of his own in the third to finish with a team-high 19 for the Yanks.

But James' all-around play (18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists) and penchant for the big play at key times landed him here yet again.

"LeBron is just doing everything," Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Dirty work, clean work, leadership work. He kind of turned it up a notch in the second half and we all followed him."

Play of the game: Here's what Coach K is talking about ...

Using a screen on the left side of the floor from Kevin Love, LeBron rumbled right around the corner and into the paint faster than poor Delfino could react, bursting into the hole to rise up and hammer down a thunderous one-handed flush with 3:46 to go in the third.

When Durant soon followed with a couple of 3-pointers and James deftly guided home the rebound of Durant's errant 3 for a tip-in bucket, Team USA was on the way to a lead that would reach 25 less than two minutes into the fourth quarter.

And the rout was on.

By the numbers: In the 49th consecutive victory for the United States in international play, James' 18 points took him within two points of Michael Jordan for second place all-time among U.S. Olympians.

ESPN.com's Prim Siripipat and Bonnie D. Ford with the latest from the London Games:

Sure, Usain Bolt can run 200 meters faster than anyone else in the world, but let’s see him do it on a broken leg.

Manteo Mitchell did exactly that when his left fibula cracked midway through his opening leg of the men’s 4x400 relay. He didn’t stop, and didn’t even slow down much, finishing his leg and helping the U.S. to a second-place finish while qualifying for Friday’s final.

Although he told reporters immediately after the race that he merely had a cramp, X-rays later revealed the fracture.

“Three days ago I was going up the stairs and I kind of missed one and landed awkwardly,” Mitchell said in a release from USA Track and Field. “I got treatment and I was fine. I did workouts, and when I warmed up today I felt really well. I felt I could go 44 (seconds)-low. I got out pretty slow, but I picked it up and when I got to the 100-meter mark it felt weird. I was thinking I just didn’t feel right.

“As soon as I took the first step past the 200-meter mark, I felt it break. I heard it. I even put out a little war cry, but the crowd was so loud you couldn’t hear it. I wanted to just lie down. It felt like somebody literally just snapped my leg in half.’’

Mitchell said that seeing the next American runner, Josh Mance, motioning for the baton handoff gave him the lift he needed to keep running hard. “I didn’t want to let those three guys down, or the team down, so I just ran on it,’’ he said. “It hurt so bad. I’m pretty amazed that I still split 45 seconds on a broken leg.”

This has been a tough Olympics for America in the 400-meter events. LaShawn Merritt, the 2008 gold medalist, pulled up with a hamstring strain in a heat and the U.S. wound up not having a runner in the 400 final for the first time ever. Now Mitchell, who made the relay pool after finishing fifth in the 400 at the U.S. trials, is out, too.

The U.S. has yet to announce its relay team for the final.

ESPN's George Smith looks at Usain Bolt's victory in the 200 meters and Ashton Eaton's gold-medal win in the decathlon:

Carmelo Anthony talks about why he chose to play for Team USA again, his pursuit of an NBA title and the Jeremy Lin saga:

LONDON -- After his South Africa 4x400 relay team crashed in Thursday afternoon’s semifinal, Oscar Pistorius sent out this tweet:

We have been so blessed to this point with a Silver at World Champs in 2011 and We were looking forward to the Final. We will be back soon!

He wasn’t kidding about "soon." Just five minutes later, he tweeted that track and field’s governing body had advanced the South African team to the relay final because it had been “severely damaged’’ when second leg runner Ofentse Mogawane was tripped by a Kenyan competitor.

Pistorius tweeted: IT'S ON!! We in the FINAL. Team management Protested as Ofentse was taken out and we have been given Lane 9!!

Pistorius said the day had been an emotional roller coaster, and indeed, it was such a roller coaster that it should have been marked by a six-foot cartoon figure holding a paw above his heads with the words: “Warning! You cannot ride this roller coaster unless you have already survived this level of mental and emotional strain.’’

But hey, Pistorius has been through it all, so what’s one more emotional churn? His legs were amputated shortly after birth and the IAAF once banned him from competition because it viewed his prosthetic legs as an unfair advantage. He fought through it all and finally reached the Olympics to inspire the world by running in the individual 400 meters last weekend.

Pistorius wants to do more than run and inspire, though. He wants to win a medal in the 4x400 relay, which is possible because South Africa was good enough to finish second at last summer’s world championships. For a while though, it looked like he wasn’t even going to be able to run in the semifinal, let alone for a medal.

Although Pistorius waited to run the third leg, Mogawane tripped with Kenya’s Vincent Kiilu around the last turn and fell to the track. Injured, he was not able to continue the race, so Pistorius instead stood at the exchange line waiting for a teammate who would never arrive.

“I took my eyes off the screen and looked down the straightaway and just as I took them off, it must have happened, because I looked down the straight and I was waiting for him,’’ Pistorius said. “He’s not the biggest of guys, so initially I thought he was pushed behind someone. And then I kept on looking and kept on looking -- and obviously he didn’t come on.’’

Replays appeared to show Kiilu cut in front of Mogawane, or at least drift into his lane. Both runners went down in a heap. Kiilu was able to get back up and struggle ahead, but Mogawane could not.

Kiilu insisted that he was not to blame for the fall. “I wasn’t at fault -- somebody spiked me from behind,’’ he said, showing the spike mark on his shoe. “I was in front and then he spiked me from behind.’’

The IAAF Jury of Appeal disagreed, ruling Kiilu had obstructed his South African rival. Initially, Pistorius said the team would not protest because it would provide no consolation. He said his disappointment and frustration would rank 11 on a scale of 10, and that he would grow even sadder when what happened sunk into his head.

Before that happened, though, his team had been reinstated and Pistorius was tweeting photos of himself running.

Will be up on the 3rd leg tomorrow for the Final! Really can't wait!