Olympics-Serbia rout Australia to reach first final

ByReuters

Published 20/08/2016 at 00:19 GMT

Serbia stormed to an early lead then held on to rout Australia 87-61 on Friday and advance to the gold medal game of the men's Olympic basketball tournament for the first time as an independent nation.

Eurosport

Image credit: Eurosport

Tiny Serbia will now take on basketball superpower United States on Sunday in a David versus Goliath final.

The only team with a losing record (2-3) to make it out of the group stage, Serbia caught Australia flat-footed holding the misfiring Boomers to just five points in the opening quarter, then put them in a 35-14 halftime hole they could never escape.

Australia, who had the better of the Serbs in preliminary play, taking a 95-80 win, were simply overwhelmed in the rematch, trailing by as much as 30 in the final quarter.

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Milos Teodosic paced Serbia with 22 points while Stefan Markovic had 14.

While Serbia will be making their first appearance in the gold medal game, they bring a deep basketball pedigree to the final.

As part of the rump of former Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, they beat the U.S. in the quarter-finals of the 2002 world championships on the way to the gold, and were beaten for a silver by the Americans at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

At the 2014 World Cup Serbia won their first medal as an independent nation, again taking silver.

Basketball