Olympics-Basketball-US women go for gold again after rolling past Australia

By Steve Keating

PARIS (Reuters) -The United States stampeded past Australia 85-64 into the women's Olympics basketball final on Friday, setting up a possible hoops golden double to close out the Games.

A day after the U.S. men clinched their spot in the showpiece match with a nail-biting win over Serbia, the women advanced with a drama-free blowout to leave them one win away from an unprecedented eighth consecutive gold and 10th overall.

The U.S. now await the winners of France versus Belgium, who meet later on Friday for a spot in Sunday's final.

"I think the gold medal is the standard," said United States Alyssa Thomas. "No matter where we are in the world, it's our goal and that's what we came here for."

If there was a grudge match in the basketball tournament it was this one between bitter rivals the U.S. and Australia.

The Americans have strung together a 60-game unbeaten run, winning seven consecutive Olympic golds, and much of that success has come at Australia's expense.

The Opals have five Olympic medals in women's basketball but have yet to claim gold, losing to the U.S. in three consecutive finals (2000, 2004 and 2008).

Australia also lost to the U.S. in the semi-finals of the 1996 and 2012 Olympics and the quarter-finals three years ago in Tokyo.

"I think that the score doesn't really show how the game went down," said twice WNBA most valuable player Breanna Stewart, who led the U.S. in scoring with 16 points.

"Even if we won by however much we won by, we continued to play the way that we want to play and respect our opponents."

Any chance of Australia getting their revenge was quickly squashed when the U.S. charged ahead 14-4 and they never eased off the gas on the way to a 45-27 halftime lead.

The rout continued after the break with the U.S. going up 30 in the fourth quarter before easing to a lopsided victory.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Paris; additional reporting Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber. Editing by Clare Fallon abd Ken Ferris)