Utah Jazz athletes moving on in the Olympics Games

Tokyo Tower during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Photo: Yu Kato

TOKYO, Japan. — The Utah Jazz National Basketball Association (NBA) team has two athletes representing two nations, neither of which are Team USA, in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.  Rudy Gobert is playing for his native France and Joe Ingles is playing for his native Australia.

Both teams have made it through the Groups and made it through the quarterfinals as today, Ingle’s Australia beat Argentina 97 – 59 and Gobert’s France beat 84 – 75. 

The Aussie team aka, the ‘Boomers’, lead handily throughout the third period with a steady ten-point lead. Then in the fourth, that was raised to a consistent 20 point lead by the Aussies over the Argentines punctuated in the middle of the fourth with a 25 point run.

The NBC commentator said they were, “putting on a clinic.” and referred to what Ingles and his teammates were doing as, “Beautiful basketball.”

In fact, the gap of the numbers on the scoreboard, in large part credited to the solid shooting performance of Ingles, was so reliable, he smiled while he took to the bench with four minutes left in the game giving the opportunity to his teammates to get some Olympic court time in.

Then in the waning moments of the Australia, Argentina game, the handful of spectators, comprised of the women athletes on the respective teams due to the no-spectator COVID rule of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Australia’s Loius Scola received a remarkable honor. Not moving on in these games marked the 41-year old’s final appearance in what was his fifth Olympic Games. As such, there was a long, standing ovation from Ingles and everyone in the building which echoed from the emptiness. The appreciative applause was coupled with tears from the highly-respected Scola himself after seeing the tears from his teammates, his coaches as well as from his opponents. 

France advanced to play Slovenia next in the semis and Australia advances to the semis against the United States. There are no Jazz players on Team USA. Gobert and Ingles are on track for the potentiality to be matched up against each other past the final four of this Olympic tournament.