Advertisement

A Look Back at 80 Years of Olympic Basketball Uniforms

Basketball — which was invented by a Canadian in 1891 — was popularized in the United States after the U.S. team won the gold medal in the event at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. 

Throughout the years, as the sport became recognized and played by other countries around the world, there was more competition for the U.S. team, who won gold at the Olympics from 1936 to 1968.

One of the greatest controversies in Olympic history was during the 1972 men’s basketball finals; the Soviet Union beat the US team by a single point — in the final three seconds — but some people credited the win to unfair referees and technical issues. Despite the chaos of that game, which went down in history, the U.S. team has won over 75% of the Olympic basketball tournaments to date.

This year, the U.S. team — with all-star players like Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Carmelo Anthony — is once again dominating its competitors, putting them head-to-head against Serbia in the finals today, at 2:45pm on NBC.

Through victories and losses, we look back at 80 years of Olympic basketball uniforms.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed every day.