Women's Basketball Joins the Olympics
July 1976. Montreal 1976 and the dominance of Uljana Semjonova
Men had played Olympic basketball for 40 years before women got their turn. In Montreal in 1976, six women's teams played in the first Olympic tournament.
The Soviet Union won gold with ease, beating opponents by an average of about 31 points. Their center, Uljana Semjonova of Latvia, stood around 2.10 m (6 ft 11 in) tall and was almost impossible to stop near the basket. She never lost a game in a major international competition.
The United States, with players such as Ann Meyers and Nancy Lieberman, took silver, and Bulgaria won bronze. The Olympic spotlight helped women's basketball grow quickly around the world.
What changed
The women's game now had its own biggest stage. National federations started to invest in women's programs, and the Soviet team showed what organized post play and team defense could achieve.