Serbians down France for women's basketball bronze

Rio de Janeiro : Jelena Milovanovic scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds to spark European champion Serbia over France 70-63 Saturday in the Rio Olympics women's basketball bronze medal game.

It was the first Olympic women's basketball medal for Serbia while France went home empty handed after taking silver behind the United States in 2012.

"This means the world to us. This means everything to us. This means a dream for us," Milovanovic said.

Serbia also beat France 76-68 in last year's European championship final after having lost their first three meetings.

Ana Dabovic added 11 points while Sonja Petrovic and Danielle Page each scored 10 points for Serbia.

"It's the best feeling in the world," said Dabovic. "We'll probably drink all night and all day tomorrow at the beach, but the biggest party will be when we get back to Serbia."

US-born forward Page also grabbed eight rebounds.

"It's such an honour to be part of this team and make history," Page said.

Serbia pulled away early but France rallied to even the half-time score at 27-27, prompting Serbian coach Marina Maljkovic to yell at her team at half-time.

"Our coach got extremely mad at us at half-time," Milovanovic said.

"She yelled at us and ran out of the locker room and we realized this is our one chance. She said we should be ashamed of ourselves because we let them come back.

"Then we got up in the second half and they didn't come back."

Serbia scored 16 consecutive points in the third quarter for a 53-40 lead, Petrovic scoring eight points in the run.

Endy Miyem led France with 18 points while Valeriane Ayayi added 10 and Isabelle Yacoubou added seven points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

"It's a big disappointment," French guard Sarah Michel said.

"We fought until the end, but it's hard to come back when they score three points from everywhere."

Serbia was part of the former Yugoslavia, which won two Olympic medals in the 1980s.