Basketball at the Olympic Games

In 1936 in Berlin, basketball was admitted as an Olympic sport for the first time.
In 1936, the first ever final was played on a dirt court in the rain, which made dribbling impossible. The United States team beat Canada 19 to 8.
In 1972, the U.S. basketball team lost a game for the first time, defeated by the Soviet Union. However, the US team refused to accept the silver medal, claiming that the clock had been improperly restarted in the final moments.

In 1988, the last American basketball team playing without NBA players won the bronze medal.
In 1992, with the door open to professional athletes, the U.S. sent a 'Dream Team' including Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Karl Malone. As expected, they went undefeated throughout the tournament.

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