Diana Taurasi Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Pictures/Getty Pictures
Diana Taurasi’s gold medal celebration on the 2024 Paris Olympics was an emotional household affair.
Moments after Taurasi and the Staff USA girls’s basketball group defeated France 67-66 in the gold medal sport on Sunday, August 11, Taurarsi, 42, embraced her mother and father Mario and Liliana courtside inside Bercy Area.
In a video captured by ESPN’s Holly Rowe, dad Mario was overcome with emotion and was seen wiping away tears from his eyes. A smiling Taurasi kissed her father’s brow because the group posed for pictures within the euphoric aftermath.
Mario is a former athlete himself, having performed skilled soccer in Italy earlier than immigrating to america.
As Staff USA takes on the 2024 Paris Olympics, the American athletes have already made an impression on the summer season Video games. The 2024 Olympics kicked off on Friday, July 26, with an illustrious opening ceremony that came about solely outside on the River Seine and featured performances from the likes of Celine Dion and Girl […]
Not solely did the victory earn Staff USA their eighth straight Olympic gold medal, it was an particularly historic second for Taurasi. The win gave Taurasi her sixth Olympic gold medal, probably the most of any basketball participant in Olympic historical past.
Diana Taurasi and Mario Taurasi Elsa/Getty Pictures
The sport additionally marked Taurasi’s closing Olympic look.
“I’m right here to compete. I’m right here to play at a excessive degree. I’m right here to provide to my teammates and I’m right here to win a gold medal — that’s it,” Taurasi informed reporters when she arrived in Paris. “I don’t care concerning the final 20 years. I’m fearful concerning the subsequent 20 years.”
Taurasi’s ardour for mentorship got here in clutch throughout the group’s run in Paris, particularly after she was taken out of the group’s beginning lineup earlier than Staff USA’s quarterfinal sport in opposition to Nigeria on Wednesday, August 7.
“The most important factor that I really like about DT is that she doesn’t change,” Taurasi’s Staff USA teammate A’Ja Wilson informed The Athletic. “She is at all times so constant in what she does — that could be a signal of greatness.”
The 2024 Paris Olympics have created a number of picture-perfect moments since kicking off on July 26. Maybe probably the most viral snap got here throughout the third spherical of the boys’s browsing competitors on July 29. After finishing a barrel trip in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina soared within the air and pointed his finger towards the […]
In an unique interview with Us Weekly previous to the Olympics, Taurasi touted lots of those self same values when she urged persistence with WNBA rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, who had been each left off the 2024 Olympic squad.
“Transition durations don’t escape anybody,” Taurasi mentioned in June. “That’s one thing all of us must undergo. Typically you discover a option to get by means of that your first 12 months, typically it takes you two years, typically it takes you three years. Typically it takes you two years to go abroad and actually hone your craft and be very assured in what you are able to do.”
Taurasi added, “Everybody has a distinct journey and totally different path. Typically you gotta give these youngsters some grace. Their careers are so lengthy. They’re a month into their WNBA careers. They’re solely gonna get higher. They’re solely gonna get extra comfy with every part round them.”
As soon as again from Paris, Taurasi will rejoin the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury the place she is within the midst of taking part in her twentieth season within the league. She has not introduced whether or not or not this season will likely be her final.
