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Olympic Games Betting Odds: The Americans have had a great history of dominating in the Olympics, and one of the big time sports which they always have their way is basketball. Both on the men's and women's side, the chalks of their respective tournaments are sure to be the Stars and Stripes.
Basketball has been in the Summer Olympics ever since 1936, though women have only been in the Games since 1976.
As we mentioned before, these really have historically been all-American events. The United States' women have won gold medals seven of the last eight Olympics and took bronze medals in the only one in that span in which they didn't take gold in 1992 in Barcelona. The U.S. men have only been beaten out for the gold a total of four times in 1972, 1980, 1988 and 2004. The American men withdrew from the 1980 Olympics and have hit the podium every other year.
In both the men's and women's side of the basketball tournaments, teams are put into groups of six teams. Every squad is guaranteed to play five games, playing once every other day. The tournaments actually begin before the Olympics officially start on Saturday, August 6 and run every day of the tournament.
At the conclusion of the group stage, the top four teams will advance into the knockout rounds. The winner of Group A will take on the 4th place team from Group, the 2nd place team from Group A will duel with the 3rd place team from Group B, the 3rd place team from Group A will match wits with the 2nd place team from Group B, while the last qualifier from Group A will take on the top dogs from Group B. From there, the tournament is single-elimination with the losers of the two semifinal matches meeting in the bronze medal matches.
All of the basketball games in the 2016 Summer Olympics will be played at Carioca Arena in Rio de Janeiro.
Men's Basketball first appeared on the Olympic program at the Berlin 1936 Games, with the women's event introduced at Montreal 1976. Professional players first competed at the Barcelona 1992, when the famous US ‘Dream Team' won gold in the men's event.
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