Basketball appeared in the Olympic program at the last pre-war forum - in 1936 in Berlin. It was attended by 23 teams, which made the basketball tournament the most representative among team sports at the XI Summer Games. The first gold in this sport went to the US team, the second were the Canadians, and the third were the Mexicans.
The Americans continued to dominate this sport - out of a dozen tournaments in which the team of this country took part, they lost the championship only in three. Twice on the top line the national team of the USSR was able to be, once - the national team of Argentina. In the 1980 Olympics, the Americans did not participate, and then the gold went to the Yugoslav basketball players. On the account of the Soviet teams, apart from two gold awards, there are four silver and three bronze ones - this is the second line in the consolidated rating of the achievements of male basketball players.
Women's basketball was added to the Summer Games program ten Olympic cycles later, before the XXI Olympics, which took place in Atlanta in 1976. The first tournament was won by the basketball players of the Soviet Union, as well as the next one, which took place without the participation of the Americans. Once again, at the 1992 summer games in Barcelona, a team made up of players from the former republics of the USSR excelled in basketball competitions. In all other women's Olympic tournaments, and there are already six of them, only the national teams of the United States won.
During the period when it acted as an independent state, men's basketball teams in Russia have never been able to win Olympic medals. Women have the best results - they have won bronze medals in the last two summer sports forums.
According to the current regulations, professional basketball players have the right to take part in Olympic basketball tournaments. The selection of the teams that are allowed to start in it is carried out according to a predetermined scheme, in which only three places are revealed in the qualifying competitions. The rest are distributed among the champions of Africa, America (2 teams), Asia, Europe (2 teams) and Oceania. The reigning world champion and the national team of the host country of the Olympiad receive one more place.
