Sue Bird (center) and Tina Charles (far right) celebrate a Team USA victory. The former Christ the King High School basketball players helped bring home the fifth consecutive gold in Women’s Olympic basketball. Photo by Getty Images.
Two Queens natives will be returning stateside with Olympic bragging rights.
Tina Charles and Sue Bird, both Middle Village’s Christ the King High School graduates, were a part of the U.S. Women Team’s road to golden dominance in basketball at the London 2012 games.
A 86-50 victory over France secured Team USA a fifth consecutive gold metal.
Charles, a Jamaica native and at 23, one of the youngest hoopsters on the team, made significant contributions in her debut at the games. According to USAbasketball.com, prior to the gold metal match-up game, Charles averaged 11.4 points per game and lead her team with 8.1 rebounds per game.
Bird, who was born in Long Island, but graduated from Christ the King in 1998, will be able to add the 2012 gold medal to her other two. London marked her third consecutive Olympic run and in a televised NBC interview, Bird indicated that the 2016 games were on the horizon.
“We’re going to Rio!” she exclaimed.
The 31-year-old point guard served as team captain and deemed the “team’s glue,” by many.
Christ the King now holds the distinction of having sent three athletes in women’s basketball to the Olympics. Former 1995 graduate and Astoria native, Chamique Holdsclaw captured gold on Team USA in 2000.
St. John’s University also watched the games with pride, while cheering on a former alumni in fencing.
Although 24-year-old Dagmara Wozniak, did not take home a metal, the New Jersey native did make it to the quarter finals in the women’s individual sabre, despite a partially torn Achilles’ tendon.
Wozniak’s former St. John’s coach, Yury Gelman accompanied her to the games and told reporters his trainee would be getting surgery on her foot as soon as she returned home.
Wozniak lost by two points to the game’s eventual silver medalist, Sofya Velikaya of Russia, 15-13.
By Katie Riordan
