Emma Meesseman headed out to the court about an hour and 15 minutes before tipoff with Belgium’s final game of the women’s basketball Olympic qualifying tournament on Sunday 11 February. She ran through her regular pregame routine, starting under the basket, then moving to the midrange, and finally to the three-point line.
While she put up shots, young fans lined the railing of the Sportpaleis in Antwerp, their eyes trained on her. One was wearing a braided headband in black, gold and red, the colours of Belgium. Another had a black, gold and red jester hat. One boy held up a sign with “Emma, please can I have an autograph?” handwritten in Flemish on a piece of cardboard.
Over the three days of the tournament, 32,533 fans crowded into the Sportpaleis. The biggest number of fans came out on the first day, when 13,700 watched Belgium came one last-minute shot from Breanna Stewart from beating the United States, a powerhouse in women’s basketball. Belgium broke an attendance record for women’s sports in the country, secured a quota for Paris 2024, and showed they are now a basketball country.
The sight of so many Belgians in one place, celebrating women’s basketball, brought goosebumps to Meesseman’s arms.
“Even just walking out, as soon as they saw you, they were just cheering and everything, and then the national anthem, the last two sentences, it was so loud! And you don't dare to dream of this,” she said in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com.
Belgian women’s basketball has grown leaps and bounds in the last decade, and they’ve picked up steam in the last few years. The Cats qualified for the Olympics for the first time in 2020, and they took seventh in Tokyo. In the 2022 FIBA World Cup, Belgium came fifth, then they won the 2023 EuroBasket. Now, they’re headed back to the Olympics.
“The last Olympics, we did something amazing. And we showed already for a couple of years that we really belong. But to be a double Olympian, not just once? At the end of the last Olympics, I talked with somebody who was telling me it was never going to happen again, that this was something that was never going to be repeated. And then yet here we are four years later.”
At the centre of the team’s growth has been Meesseman, the 195.58 cm (6-foot-5 center) from Ypres, Belgium. She has championships both in the EuroLeague and the WNBA. She won the EuroLeague MVP in 2023, and was named the Finals MVP in 2019 when she won a WNBA championship with the Washington Mystics. Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve said Meesseman is one of the top-five players in the world.
The last time Meesseman played in the WNBA was 2022. She played with the Chicago Sky, alongside Belgian teammate Julie Allemand, and made the WNBA All-Star Team. But in 2023, Meesseman missed the WNBA season to focus on Belgium playing in the EuroBasket tournament, while also playing for Fenerbahce, a club in Turkey.
While she hasn’t ruled out a return to the WNBA, she sees how Belgium basketball has grown, and she wants to keep that momentum going.
“It’s not a closed chapter. But also it's not a priority because the Olympics are this year, obviously. The things that we preach right now, like if you see the Sportpaleis, it's what you want to have the most because, okay, you have full gyms in the WNBA, but I have more of a connection with this. Like they're here for us, for me. It's a different connection that you have,” she said.
Emma Meesseman: 'A true leader'
The commitment Meesseman has made to Belgium has not gone unnoticed. Little girls in Antwerp were wearing her jersey. Every time she stepped out of the team hotel, she was stopped for autographs and selfies.
“I tell her a lot, even though she doesn’t like to hear it, that in her position, she is one of the best in the world. Her ability to score, create and unify... Emma is a true leader. She represents a lot in this team and for a long time, not only this year. We hope she’ll be there as long as possible and she will manage to pass the values [to the next generations],” said Belgian coach Rachid Meziane.
Because Meesseman has played both in the WNBA and EuroLeague, she’s competed alongside many of the players Belgium will face in Paris. They know what she brings to the court, and how hard she is to stop.
“Emma was quiet, just reserved, but on the court, just a silent killer. Whatever the team needs. You know, she's super unselfish. We have to tell her, like, no, be selfish. Like, we need you to be selfish. Overall, a great teammate, a great person. I love to share the floor with her. She loves to move the ball, and she's just an amazing player,” said Team USA’s Kahleah Copper, who played with Meesseman on the Chicago Sky.
Part of what makes the Belgian team so strong is that in this relatively small country of 11.59 million people, the basketball players have known each other and played together for years.
“In the USA, you can make so many different teams. We can’t. We don't have that deep of a pool of players. So we always have to keep building and that's our strong point. That continuity that we have over the last eight summers, and you grow up together, literally,” she said. “Our strongest point is not just the talent. It's just that we want to fight for each other. And you have that energy on the court. That's our strongest point and we know that.”
With Paris 2024 now in Belgium’s sights, Meesseman is hearing more and more from fans who are inspired by her journey, and want to continue Belgium growing the sport. Though she has a trophy case full of awards, and hopes to add more to it, this next generation of basketball players could be Meesseman’s best legacy.
“My childhood, I never went to a national team game because there were none, or it was not advertised. There were no jerseys that you could buy. And now to see all those kids watching us together with the parents and family and creating that dream that they want to go and do the same thing and now play in a gym like that. This is going to be a standard for them that they want to reach. It's just so nice to see. I've had kids in the last year saying ‘I want to be better than you.’ I want to be part of building bigger things. I'm all for that.”
