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Caitlin Clark excluded from US Olympic team after rejection by USA Basketball

story June 10, 2024
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Caitlin Clark, the most popular basketball player in the country, if not the world, has been cut from the U.S. women's basketball roster for the 2024 Olympics, three people familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports Saturday morning.

This confirms USA TODAY Sports' nightly coverage that Clark – whose exciting logo three-pointers and pinpoint passes thrilled record crowds of spectators and television viewers, earning her WNBA Rookie of the Month honors and numerous rookie statistical records – was snubbed by USA Basketball.

USA Basketball, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Clark could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday morning.

Two other sources, both longtime USA Basketball veterans with decades of experience in women's basketball, told USA TODAY Sports on Friday that concern about how Clark's millions of fans would react to likely limited playing time on a full roster was a factor in the decision-making process. If true, it would be an extraordinary admission of the tension that this multimillion-dollar sensation, who signs autographs for dozens of children before and after every game, has caused among women's basketball's old guard. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is so sensitive.

The U.S. women's basketball team is the most dominant and successful team in the world, having last lost a game in 1992. Despite all their victories and medals, the U.S. players at the Olympics are often largely ignored by the sports media. The gymnasts, swimmers, runners and, of course, the U.S. women's soccer team get much more attention. There's a lot going on these weeks, with dozens of medals awarded every day, so the competition for headlines is always intense.

Even at women's basketball gold medal games at the Olympics, the press box is almost always half empty, if not emptier. Clark, of course, would have changed all that, drawing interest not only from the U.S. media, but from reporters around the world.

Clark, 22, has become the gateway to women's basketball for hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of girls and boys, women and men. USA Basketball certainly could have used her enormous reach to promote not only its 2024 Olympic team, but women's sports in general. Selecting Clark would also have reflected the popularity of the college sport — and that's been done before, with college players like Christian Laettner, Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart being named to U.S. Olympic teams over the years.

The timing of USA Basketball's decision couldn't have been worse. Clark hit a WNBA rookie-record seven three-pointers and scored 30 points in front of the largest WNBA crowd in 17 years: 20,333, Friday night in Washington, D.C. Before the game, which Clark's Indiana Fever won, the Fever and Mystics were a combined 2-19. Hundreds of children and adults in the crowd wore Clark's No. 22 jerseys.

The crowd at Capital One Arena was more than twice the size of the Chicago Sky that had attended the stadium in the same building the night before.

For months, Clark's possible selection has been the subject of considerable speculation throughout the basketball world.

“I don't know how you leave the country without her,” four-time Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie told The Sporting News in April, adding that Clark should be on Team USA “100 percent.”

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