Vince Carter’s ‘Dunk Of Death’ Over France’s 7-Foot-2 Center Frederic Weis Is An All-Time Great Olympic Moment

This dunk change my beliefs on what humans are physically capable of doing and still blows my mind every time I rewatch it.

The Olympics are in full swing and while the US has some work to do in the gold medal count (we’re still leading in overall), when all is said and done I’m betting the stars and stripes will claim their rightful place at the top of the leaderboard.

Despite some shaky performances in the pre-Olympics showcases, including a one point victory over 43.5 point underdog South Sudan, the US basketball team seems poised to make another run at gold after a dominant showing against Serbia and a rematch with South Sudan coming tomorrow before matching up with Puerto Rico (which I thought was part of the US?) on August 3rd.

While many people immediately associate Olympic basketball with the iconic 1992 Dream Team, I have a different memory that will always rank first, if only on my list.

In 2000, the summer Olympics were being held in Sydney, Australia and the US basketball team was, as it always is, loaded with superstars. Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Alonzo Mourning and other came together to secure the 12th gold in US Olympic basketball history but it was a moment Vince Carter had that reigns supreme over all the other memories.

The US was playing France early in the tournament and held a commanding 69-54 lead with 16 minutes remaining in the second half when France’s Yann Bonato grabbed a defensive rebound and tried to throw a behind the back pass to Stéphane Risacher who was streaking down the court. Unfortunately for them Vince Carter saw it coming, grabbed the ball and exploded to the hoop, where 7-foot-2 center Frederic Weis was waiting.

Instead of passing it off or dribbling around him or making some twisting acrobatic shot attempt, Vince Carter decided to show the world that his legs were not made of bone and muscle, but springs and leapt over Weis and slammed the ball through the hoop for (in my opinion) the most impressive dunk in human history.

Yes, he cleared a giant of a man in an actual basketball game, not a dunk contest.

It’s also pretty crazy to think that Carter still had a full head of hair at the time and kept playing in the NBA until 2020, finishing as the only player to play 22 seasons and play a game in 4 different decades.

Hopefully we’ll have some more memorable moments this year but it’s going to be hard if not impossible to top this dunk.