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Events
For Mongolia’s three-on-three women’s basketball team, two losses but a trail blazed www.washingtonpost.com
TOKYO — Khulan Onolbaatar started playing basketball just four years ago in her native Mongolia, teaching herself how to dribble and shoot after watching countless YouTube videos of her favorite NBA stars.
Get the latest news and results from the Tokyo Olympics
“I’d try to mimic the motions on my school court, all by myself, imagining the opponent,” she said.
On Saturday night, Onolbaatar no longer had to imagine. She was playing the United States in the debut of three-on-three basketball competition at the Olympics. It mattered less that the top-seeded Americans had rolled to a 21-9 win because, four years after she taught herself the game, the 21-year-old and her teammates became the first athletes from their country to compete in a team event at the Olympics.
That’s a reflection of just how popular three-on-three basketball has become in the central Asian country of 3 million, which has a long record of producing Olympians in individual sports such as wrestling, boxing and judo. Onolbaatar represents progress for women in Mongolia who want to thrive in team sports — she was the first female flag bearer in her country’s Olympic history during Friday night’s Opening Ceremonies — and hopes that playing in Tokyo will empower more girls there to play.
“I’m just trying to be a role model for them. Representing the female athletes and the women of Mongolia in general on the biggest stage possible is just mind-blowing,” she said in an interview earlier in the week. “Basketball has exploded in the last five years. . . . Nowadays, three-on-three in our country is just like a national sport. Everyone is playing it. Everyone is watching it on TV. It’s a really big deal for us in Mongolia.”
Making its debut Saturday, three-on-three basketball offered something the Olympics had never seen: a pickup brand of the sport with hip-hop beats thumping in the background. The court is smaller. The play is more physical than five-on-five, with fewer fouls called. That style of play attracts Onolbaatar and so many other Mongolian kids to play the sport, she said.
“We are just naturally made to be more resilient,” she said. “Being physically tough. Because our culture is nomadic, we would be ready to adapt to any situation possible. I think that helps us really well.”
The three-on-three basketball craze in Mongolia can be traced to the early 2000s, when kids began playing in organized events there, according to Myagmarjav Luvsandash, the president of the country’s three-on-three basketball association. The continued interest over the past decade underscores FIBA’s push to popularize the sport in far-flung places. Other coaches have taken notice, including Kara Lawson, who took a U.S. national team to compete in three-on-three competition in Mongolia in 2019.
“We played right in the heart of Genghis Khan Square [in the capital, Ulaanbaatar]. It was sold out every game. It was very loud,” Lawson said. “They are really, really throwing a lot into three-on-three in their country.”
These Olympics didn’t get any less strange when the first medal was won
That push over the past decade helped establish a popular men’s national team, which did not qualify for Tokyo but is considered one of the best in Asia. Roughly 20,000 kids are playing organized three-on-three in Mongolia, according to Luvsandash, who estimated half were girls.
“In the last 30 years, since we’ve become a democratic country, there are not so many sports for the girls to practice and learn and play but, of course, on the street, basketball,” Luvsandash said. “If you go to Mongolia and you’re walking the street, you see hoops everywhere. Kids are playing.”
Onolbaatar took up the sport when she was 18 after being inspired by her brother, men’s national team member Enkhbaatar Onolbaatar, but she had little idea where to start.
She watched YouTube tutorials and tried to pattern her game after her favorite NBA player, Stephen Curry. She joined the three-on-three team at her university and later the national team. She moved in with her teammates. They ran stairs at their apartment building and practiced on outdoor courts in the brutal winter cold. They sometimes trained in the rugged mountains surrounding Ulaanbaatar, convinced the elevation would help their stamina when it came time to play other teams.
There were difficult moments in international play: Mongolia made its World Cup debut in 2019 but lost all four of its games in Amsterdam. The Mongolians had more success at the 2019 Asia Cup, finishing fourth, and qualified for the Olympics through the world rankings list. It was a seminal moment for women’s sports in the country and made the team instant stars.
“Younger kids are growing and playing basketball, and they’re looking at them,” Luvsandash said. “These girls are stars now in Mongolia. [Onolbaatar’s] jersey is selling online in Mongolia. It’s selling very well. Kids are buying it.”
They are Olympians. They are mothers. And they no longer have to choose.
On the court, Mongolia lost its opener in Tokyo in heartbreaking fashion. Against a bigger Italian team, the Mongolians missed a shot in the final seconds and fell, 15-14.
Against the United States, Onolbaatar tried to keep up with Kelsey Plum, a WNBA star who has been playing basketball most of her life. With her team down 11-1 early, Onolbaatar, who is 5-foot-11, drove the lane and tried to muscle her way to the hoop. U.S. center Stefanie Dolson, who is 6-5, met her at the rim and violently blocked the shot, and Onolbaatar lowered her shoulder and fouled Dolson out of frustration.
When it was over, Onolbaatar finally flashed a smile when she walked out of the stadium, stopping by a television to watch a replay. She pointed and muttered something to her teammates. They all looked as if they had just won. Earlier in the week, Onolbaatar said she hoped girls in her country would watch the team play in Tokyo and feel inspired.
“I think I’m going to be a role model for them,” she said. “If I can practice hard, believe in myself and get to this level — they have an opportunity, too.”
Published Date:2021-07-25
