Caitlin Clark, the most popular women’s basketball player in the nation, if not the world, has been left off the 2024 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball roster, three people with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports Saturday morning.
This confirms USA TODAY Sports’ overnight reporting that Clark — whose thrilling logo 3’s and pinpoint passes have electrified record crowds and TV audiences while earning her WNBA rookie of the month honors and numerous rookie statistical records — has been snubbed by USA Basketball.
USA Basketball, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and Clark could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday morning.
Two other sources, both long-time U.S. basketball veterans with decades of experience in the women’s game, told USA TODAY Sports Friday that concern over how Clark’s millions of fans would react to what would likely be limited playing time on a stacked roster was a factor in the decision making. If true, that would be an extraordinary admission of the tension that this multi-million-dollar sensation, who signs autographs for dozens of children before and after every game, has caused for the old guard of women’s basketball. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team is the most dominant and successful team in the world, having last lost a game in 1992. But for all of their victories and medals, the U.S. players are often largely ignored by the sports media at the Olympic Games. The gymnasts and swimmers and runners and of course the U.S. women’s soccer team get so much more attention. It’s a crowded couple of weeks with dozens of medals being handed out every day, so the competition for headlines is always intense.
Even at the women’s gold-medal basketball games at the Olympics, the press tribune is almost always half-empty, if not worse. Clark of course would have changed all that, igniting interest not just among U.S. media but reporters around the world.
Clark, 22, has become the human gateway to women’s hoops for hundreds of thousands, likely even millions, of girls and boys, women and men. USA Basketball certainly could have tapped into her enormous reach to help promote not only its 2024 Olympic team but the women’s game in general. Selecting Clark also would have honored the popularity of the college game — and it has been done before, with collegians like Christian Laettner, Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart making U.S. Olympic teams over the years.
The timing of USA Basketball’s decision could not have been worse. Clark made a WNBA rookie record-tying seven 3’s and scored 30 points in front of the largest WNBA crowd in 17 years: 20,333, Friday night in Washington, D.C. Entering the game, won by Clark’s Indiana Fever, the Fever and Mystics were a combined 2-19. Hundreds of children and adults in the crowd wore Clark’s No. 22 jerseys.
The audience at Capital One Arena was more than double the crowd the Chicago Sky drew the night before in the same building.
For months, Clark’s possible selection has been the topic of 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 “one hundred percent” should be on Team USA.