Bush Watches US Top Czechs in Basketball

With President Bush and the first family looking on, the United States women's basketball team began its quest for a fourth-straight gold medal with a rout of the Czech Republic. Diana Taurasi scored 13 of her 17 points in the first half to lead the US to the 97-57 victory in the opener tonight. The Americans got off to a slow start, trailing 13-2 after giving up layup after layup to the feisty Czech team.

Taurasi finally got the team rolling much to the pleasure of Bush, who was dressed in a blue shirt and USA cap. Taurasi's layup ignited a 20-4 run by the US to close the first quarter. "Sometimes you think things are going to be easy from the get-go and they're not," Taurasi said. "We're playing against very good teams that have been together for a long time." (More 2008 Beijing Olympics stories.)