Daily Times

From our Olympics correspondent in Paris – France surged through to the men’s basketball finals Thursday night after a hard-fought victory over Germany that had Paris’s Bercy Arena incandescent with joy. Les Bleus will be fighting the US team for gold on Saturday after the Americans clawed back a desperate victory of their own from the dominating Serbian team.

As the two pre-eminent powers of continental Europe, France and Germany have fought three all-out wars in the past century and a half, give or take a few years. As the German men’s basketball team surged ahead in the first quarter of the semi-finals against France on Thursday night in Paris’s Bercy Arena, a fresh outbreak of hostilities didn’t seem altogether out of the question.

The French fans had every reason to be on edge. Despite winning a shattering victory over Canada just two days before, France’s Les Bleus were still raw from a 71-85 loss to the Germans last week in Lille. As the reigning world champions’ lightning assault pulled them out in front, the French supporters seemed to be living through their worst nightmares all over again.

With French fans outnumbering Germans in the stadium by a factor of – conservatively – 20 to one, the atmosphere was intense. The German side was welcomed onto the court with a hearty chorus of boos, which redoubled every time one of their players took a free throw, sank a three-pointer or, on one occasion, got injured.

But for all that, the main mood in the arena was one of open exultation. The roving Dance Cam had only to glance at spectators before they erupted into their most earnest and artless moves, magnified tenfold on the vast screens overhead.

Throughout the Games, the organisers have drawn on a uniquely French tradition to signal the start of each event. Echoing the strict pageantry of the French theatre, a celebrity will stride onto the court holding a sceptre crowned in red velvet, striking it three times against the floor to open the match. Most times, it’s an athlete, often an Olympic champion in their own right. Tonight, it was an astronaut – France’s favourite spaceman and sports fan Thomas Pesquet.

After trailing the Germans 12-2 early on as the crowd looked on, aghast, France began to regain its momentum in the second quarter. An almost perfunctory slam dunk by the towering Victor Wembanyama drew the score even at 33-33 going into half-time. After a tense break punctuated by a brief but memorable can-can performance – what else were you expecting? – the game continued.

Driven on by the screaming crowd, the French side began to pull out in front. Deep into the last quarter, with just 40 seconds to go, it looked like they had pulled it off. Then Franz Wagner, one half of a pair of brothers playing on the German side, nailed a three-pointer, almost evening the score.

The game’s last seconds were frantic. Germany’s Schroder launched one last desperate shot. He missed – the game was over. One of the French players sent the ball spinning into the crowd in triumph, where it soared past row after row of outstretched arms to bounce down an empty stairwell into the deep recesses of the arena.