The path is always there in an Olympic tournament. I'm going to make a hot take, do one hot take. I am not sure Spain wins gold because I think they might have to play France in their semi-final and I think France maybe wins.

Hello everybody and welcome to this week's edition of the late sub I am your host Claire Watkins it is Monday July 22nd and we have kind of it's kind of the

primer we got the pregame we got the shot and we got the chaser we are getting ready for the, but before we have a very big basketball weekend to discuss that took place in Phoenix

and then we're going to get into sort of the details of what the Olympics might look like for the United States Women's National

Soccer team as they tried to find that pathway forward into the metal rounds

after a disappointing 2023. All right before diving into Olympic previews. I think we need to talk about maybe you could call the official pre-party of Olympic basketball. They're pre- gaming the Olympics. They were pre-gaming the Olympics in Phoenix this weekend at the W MBA All-Star game, which was a huge, it was like, it was a great kind of

of a cultural touchpoint for the league, wonderful weekend seemed like everyone had a really good time, but also a little bit of interesting competition because team WMBA did beat team USA at the All-Star game for the second straight Olympic cycle.

So this happened in 2021 as well.

Team WMBA defeated Team USA back then.

Now, as we know, USA went on to win Olympic gold,

despite that loss.

Also kind of a little bit moment of deja vu

Arique Ogumba Wale, who was the 2021

All-Star Game MVP was also the All-Star game MVP

this weekend, second time in her career, it's a short list of

players who have ever won all-star MVP more than once. It is a prestigious list. It's just kind of funny

I think that both instances have been games against the U.S. Olympic team.

People might know that A Gumba Wal-Lai had said earlier this year that after being in camp with the U.S.

she had removed herself from contention for the team

kind of citing some of the internal team politics I don't think there's nothing there

right I don't I mean everyone's being a professional I don't think that it's any sort of super big you know bad blood between the team or between a

mouba wale but there's there's something there and and a reke popped off especially in the second half she had zero points in the first half of this game and then she went on to score a WMBA all-star game record 34 points in the second half to lead team WMBA to victory.

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