Six Serbs add Olympic bronze to 2023's silver at Worlds
13 EuroLeague players bring home Olympic medals
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The men's basketball tournament at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris came to a close of Saturday night with a baker's dozen players from the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague wearing medals. Six were from France, which finished with the silver medal, and the other seven played for Serbia, which bested Germany for the bronze medal.
The list for France includes a reigning EuroLeague champion, Mathias Lessort of Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, and a former champion, Guerschon Yabusele of Real Madrid. They were joined by Isaia Cordinier of Virtus Segafredo Bologna, Nando De Colo of LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne, Frank Ntilikana of Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade and Matthew Strazel of AS Monaco. France guard Andrew Albicy of Dreamland Gran Canaria was the lone player in the BKT EuroCup to win a medal.
For Serbia, Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade had three representatives with Dejan Davidovac, Ognjen Dobric and Uros Plavsic. The first two had already won a silver medal last year in the Word Championships after falling to Germany in the final. The bronze is Plavsic's first major accolade as he gets ready to make his EuroLeague debut in 2024-25 with Zvezda.
Olympiacos Piraeus contributed two players to the bronze medalists - big men Nikola Milutinov and Filip Petrusev. Both of them also won that silver medal at the 2023 Worlds, meaning that the Serbian team has found a continuity that is bringing results. This is the second major accolade for each of them at the senior national team level, even if both had already won hardware with the youth categories of the national team.
Vanja Marinkovic joined Partizan this summer and was another member of the team that won silver in 2023. Veteran Marko Guduric of Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul has won the fourth major medal of his successful career. He won EuroBasket silver medals in 2017 and 2022 and, of course, he also won the silver last year at the Worlds. The Olympic bronze is his latest triumph in a fruitful career.