Ulaanbaatar s fierce night: Chinese women s basketball team loses overtime, the golden generation journey is not over

In the Ulaanbaatar Stadium on June 27, 2025, the air was filled with anxiety and shouting. When the red light of the timer lights on and the electronic screen freezes at 21:19, the girls in red robes hugged each other tightly - this is not a carnival of victory, but the backs of the three Chinese women's basketball girls passing by the quarterfinals of the world. The Chinese team, which was almost over the group stage in the red beacon in the grassland storm, encountered the hunting of the host Mongolian team in the knockout round. At the start of the game, the Mongolian players rushed like horses on the grassland. With the cheers of the tsunami of the home court, they quickly established an advantage of 13:10. The broadcast camera swept across the sidelines, and the blue veins on the back of the hand holding the tactical board tightly raised.

" Pay attention to the bottom line interspersed! " Captain Wang Lili's roar penetrated the noise. This "Key Miss" who once created 9 long-range miracles in a single game has now become a battlefield commander. With her ghostly changing direction breakthrough, the scoreboard began to flip—18:17, and the Chinese girls robbed the initiative from the edge of the cliff. In the last 19 seconds of the overtime battle, Mongolian team No. 9 Bad Tulega made a long shot with two defenses. The 143 seconds of overtime became eternal torture: Mongolian players continued to hit the basket and caused damage, and Chinese team star Li Mengyao still insisted on fighting during the fight. When the opponent's striker Enh Boulder completed the winning layup, the scoreboard's numbers were like steel nails pierced into the hearts of every Chinese fan.

The inheritance code of the golden generation

This team carries a special mission: in the 2019 Dutch World Cup, Zhang Zhiting, Li Yingwei and others created the first legend of Chinese three-man basketball; in the 2023 Vienna, Wang Lili won the bronze medal with a bloody battle with injuries. Now that the new generation of players has received the torch, the 22-year-old Gao Shiyan has become the pillar of the inside, and the post-00s point guard Zhou Yue's flower-piercing footsteps amazed the FIBA ​​technical officials.

"We shot all the last bullet. "Wang Lili's eyes were filled with tears at the post-match press conference, and her right hand wrapped in bandages trembled slightly, "But please believe that the flames of Chinese three-man basketball will never go out. "

The light and dark border of the road to Nirvana

Technical statistics reveal the cruel reality: the Chinese team's outside shooting percentage in this game is only 28%, 13 percentage points lower than their opponents. Senior commentator Yang Yi was heartbroken in the live broadcast room: "When the Mongolian team built the Great Wall with their bodies, we need a sharper spear to break the formation! "

Historical data show that the Chinese women's team's overtime winning rate in the past five years is less than 40%. Physical fitness experts pointed out: "The intensity of the offense and defense conversion of three-person basketball is comparable to a 100-meter sprint, and our endurance training requires a revolutionary breakthrough. "

The future picture of sparks turbulently

There is still hope in the haze of failure: Yao Ming, who was watching the game on the sidelines, shook hands with the chairman of the Mongolian Basketball Association, quietly stuffed the tactical book full of notes into the inner bag of the suit; the registered players of the domestic three-person basketball league exceeded the 100,000 mark, and in the open-air court deep in the Xinjiang grassland, a 13-year-old Kazakh girl was imitating Li Mengyao's signature and turned to jump shot.

On the latest ranking list of FIBA, the Chinese women's team is still firmly in the top three. As coach Chen Yan wrote on the whiteboard in the locker room: "The real champion is the person who continues to run with scars after falling down. "

The next day in the morning light of Ulaanbaatar, the girls of the women's basketball team had already stepped onto the training ground. The snow-capped mountains in the distance are like swords, and the basketballs in their hands are depicting a new legendary trajectory.