Why didn’t the Caitlin Clark play during the 2024 Olympics? A new book breaks it down (exclusive)

As the Paris Olympics approached, a fascinating conversation percoulled about the winning team in sports – US Olympic Women’s Basketball LawWho has not lost a game since 1992.

Never before had a choice of election of women’s bile teams had been expected more, because never before, the United States had presented a player who Caitlin ClarkThe 22-year-old rookie who shoots the logo three and jaw-release passes while leaving a record presence and television viewers to his sport, becomes the most popular women’s player in the country and, very likely, the world.

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Would she get one of the 12 places in the team, as the top collegians sometimes did? The answer was no.

USA Basketball decided that it didn’t want Clark in its team, instead gave a place to often injured, 42-year-old Diana Taurasi As a kind of go-away gift to meet his famous career. In this way, the women’s team moved to the type of short -shooting coverage that it usually gets in an Olympic schedule packed with gymnasts, swimmers and track stars and fails to take advantage of the light spotlight Clark’s presence shines on all athletes around her.

Below, go into the story in an exclusive excerpt from a new book: On his game: Caitlin Clark and the revolution in women’s sports By Christine Brennan.

Irony arrived with the official announcement of the team. Provening points about the size of Clark’s appeal, the Associated Press promoted a story about the announcement of the American Olympic team at X with a photo of. . . Caitlin Clark. And the top of USA todaySports mobile app presented three stories about the Olympic Team Selection News – all with Clark’s name in the heading. Editors who make decisions on how to get people interested in stories about the name of the American Olympic Women’s team chose to use the name and photo of someone who was not in the team.

Clark had another option to come to Paris: US Women’s 3X3 team. Although she had never played on a national 3×3 team (she had experience with us under 16 and under 19 5×5 teams), the United States offered her a place on the 3×3 team long before June, and knew that there was a qualified event for her to play in being eligible for the Olympics, according to two sources with knowledge of these conversations.

The 3X3 tournament was held at a temporary stadium at Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine was under the French Revolution. Music Blared and a DJ style announced spoke continuously. The atmosphere was light and fun, but there was nothing wrong with this relatively new supplement to the Olympic Games for the valuable 5X5 game.

Nevertheless, the United States asked Basketball: Was this an opportunity?

Did Clark want to go to Paris in the American team?

The response from Clark and her team was simple: No. She didn’t want to play 3×3 basketball at the Olympics.

Two weeks after Clark was left outside the Olympic team, an interesting voice wanted to be heard on the subject: the man who runs next summer -Sos. Casey Wasserman, chairman of 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, which also owns a sports marketing and management company representing Taurasi and Stewart, among others, appeared on the US Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis on Saturday, June 22. Wasserman had just finished several questions from a dozen journalists when he was playing, “No Playy Said Said Said Said Said Said Said Said Said Said Said Said Said No Play Officly Sain.

“Okay, what about Caitlin Clark being left outside the Olympic team?”

“I think it’s a missed opportunity because she is clearly a generational at a time when the world was ready for it,” Wasserman said. “There have been incredible talents in the world; shame for all of us, the world was not in a place to embrace it. Take Diana (Taurasi) or Breanna Stewart, or some of our (Wasserman) clients who will be on the law. But I understand the other side of it, which is that it is an independent process and it is difficult to tell

On July 14, just before the WNBA closed for All-Star Game and the Olympics, Clark traveled and the fever to the Minnesota Target Center to play Olympic coach Cheryl ReeveLynx for the first time in 2024. The place was sold out, thanks to Clark and her fans, many come from the next door Iowa. When she played in the Big Ten Championship there, Clark was so loved by the fans that the Target Center had an unofficial nickname: “Carver North” (Iowa’s hem arena, which was of course Carver-Hawkeye Arena).

Before the game, Reeve was asked to meet “many people cheering” for the road.

“I don’t give two S — s,” she said with a straight face.

Reporter: How about one?

“Not even an S —,” she said, cracking a slu smile.

In that game Clark scored 17 points with 6 assists when Indiana upset Minnesota, who played without injured star Napheesa Collier. Final result: 81–74. During the last seconds, when the game won and Clark went to the line to shoot and make two last free throw, she applauded triumphantly as the fans rose. She gave a great wave of her left arm. The bowl from the capacity mass of 18 978 were ears ears.

After the match, Reeve seemed to give. . . Well, she cared a little more. When asked if WNBA can do to encourage similar environments in more games, Reeve said: “I do not know that I completely understand the question, because everyone knows that the reason our teams around the league have sales is because Caitlin Clark and Indiana Fever come to town.”

Jen Rizzotti, chairman of the United States Basketball’s Women’s Committee, was optimistic that the interest in Clark would die as the Paris games approached. “I hope,” she said at her zoom press conference on June 11, “that the journey that this team is about to take and the outstanding amount of success they have had is sufficient history because people want to follow it and market it and pay attention to these extraordinary 12 women who will represent us this summer in Paris.”

A member of the selection committee, Dawn StaleyDidn’t get memo. On July 28, on the NBC set during the Olympics, asked Mike Tirico Staley for his “reading” about the Clark situation now that some time had passed since she was left by the team.

“As a committee member,” said Staley, “you are accused of putting together the best team of players, the best talent. Caitlin is just a beginner in WNBA. Did not play badly, but did not play as she played now.”

Of course, Clark had played well enough before the team was announced to Rizzotti to call her the game “huge.”

Then the Staley pin pulled out of the metaphorical hand grenade and raised it to Reeve’s team Huddle. “If we had to do it again,” she said, “how she plays, she would be really high consideration to get the team because she plays head and shoulders above many people. To shoot the ball extremely well, I mean, she is an elite passer, she has only a good basket IQ, and she is a little more season in the professional game than she was two months old.” ”

The question remained: How did all these skilled basketball points in the committee missed how good Clark was already – and how good she would play at the Olympic break?

The answer became clearer with the day: because they wanted to.

By summer -Os in 2024, the US Women’s Basketball Team served its eighth Olympic gold medal in a row and won all except a game with at least 13 points. It was the last, the gold medal game against France where the United States struck with as many as 10 points in the third quarter before coming back to flee with a broken victory 67-66.

In the gold medal game, Diana played Taurasi and Caitlin Clark the same number of minutes and got the same number of points: zero and zero. One was a court, sat on the team bench. The other was in the United States, 4,000 miles away.

Interest from reporters and fans fell predictably under what the team would have attracted to Clark. The opening conference conference for the American women’s team drew about 20 reporters, while the men’s team attracted over 100. For the team’s first match in Lille, France, against Japan on July 29, Ben Golliver from the Washington Post reported that there were “lots of open spaces” in the Tribune press and “only two dozens”. Presence was also off: 13,040 for the American game, as opposed to more than 20,000 for each of the other three female games that day.

Did the interest among the media for the semi -final game USA – Australia at Paris Bercy Arena? It didn’t. There were only 18 journalists scattered around the huge interview area after the match, when the night before, for the US semi -finals, the same area was packed with over 100 reporters.

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The TV viewer at NBC was good, but well below what it would have been if Clark was there: 7.8 million saw the United States beat France. The game started at 9:30 east on a Sunday morning, so that number was affordable, but it was also the worst viewer for an American female basketball team Gold Medal since 2008, according to NBC. 2021 in Tokyo the number was 7.9 million. 2016 in Rio it was 8.1 million. 2012 in London, 10.2 million.

These games had different start times, so the comparisons were apples with oranges, but the figures still tell the story of USA Basketball’s missed opportunity.

Until 2024 US Women’s Soccer Gold Medal Match, played the day before, also started in the morning, albeit 11 o’clock Östra, had 9.4 million viewers. It was the highest viewer for a women’s gold medal football match since 2004. So, football went up and basketball went down and begging the question: How many more millions would have seen if Clark had been on the guard list?

In December Washington Post Listed the United States Basketball’s choice not to choose Clark for the Olympic team as one of “the very worst sports decisions in 2024.”

Adapted from On his game: Caitlin Clark and the revolution in women’s sports By Christine Brennan. Copyright © 2025 by Christine Brennan. Adapted for extracts with permission from Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, inc

On his game: Caitlin Clark and the revolution in women’s sports By Christine Brennan hits shelves on July 8 and is now available for pre -order, where books are sold.