Crazy Steph Curry picture which encapsulated USA’s gold medal win over France

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In any other context you would guess it was a David vs Goliath picture. The little fella proving that size isn’t everything, or that the only blocker to success is the one in your head, or that with a simple change in mindset to the revolutionary system of World Class Basics you too can be as fulfilled and successful as Jake Humphrey.

Then you look at the jerseys on the players and realise the small chap is from the USA basketball team, perhaps the most Goliath-like entity in world sport. Oh, and he’s 6ft 3in, so not such a pipsqueak after all.

He is Steph Curry, the Golden State Warriors shooting guard who has been credited with revolutionising basketball with his willingness to shoot from extreme range and his remarkable accuracy when he does so. He is shooting over Victor Wembanyama, all 7ft 4in of him, the presumed French megastar of the NBA for the coming decade.

His time will have to wait a while longer after the USA beat France 98-87 at the Bercy Arena to win the men’s final. It was not the blowout some expected but the game was settled by an incredible display of shooting from Curry in the final quarter, making four increasingly outrageous three-pointers to kill the spirited French resistance. It was a captain’s performance from Curry in what Americans will insist we refer to as “the clutch” but in a team of Alpha types there is only one obvious leader.

LeBron James will turn 40 in December. He has been in the NBA for so long that his Los Angeles Lakers have just drafted his son Bronny to play alongside him this year. Yet after the Americans were humbled with a fourth placed finish in last year’s World Cup he has led the charge for a ridiculously gifted team of stars to coalesce for one last job.

It is a special kind of pressure on the American basketball team, the presumed eternal Olympic champions. It is not enough to win, they must do it convincingly. Shaquille O’Neal, a gold medallist in 1996, said this week he was not watching this Games as he was unimpressed with America’s narrow margin of victory against South Sudan in a tune-up game. “If they don’t win by 20, I’m not impressed by it.”

Shaq may not have liked how France stuck around in this game but James’ ability to seize the limelight even in such exalted company was almost voyeuristically magnetic. He wore new gold shoes for the occasion, which felt a touch presumptuous. He played as if trying to prove a series of points about himself, like an evil Dad.

Yet France stayed within reach until the final stage, ebbing away the American lead to three points at one stage. Until Curry took control, a man too brilliant to be denied, even by a gigantic obstacle.

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