Canada is the 2015 FIBA Americas Women’s Champion

As the seconds ticked down, the chant went up: "Rio, Rio, Rio."

The challenge then — after three years training for the moment and a summer spent working to make it all happen — was to keep it together.

"It was exactly what I dreamed when [the crowd] was chanting at the end of the game," said Kim Gaucher, the 31-year-old veteran who has played 15 years for Canada, through more lows than highs, and remains a fixture on a team that seems ready to peak. "You’re trying hold back tears and keep composed because there are still 90 seconds left to play. I mean, what an unbelievable experience."

Believe it. It’s real. The Canadian women’s basketball team is one of the best on the planet and headed to their second straight Olympic Games after they dominated all comers at the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship, winning their gold medal final over Cuba 82-66, just the second time Canada has won the Americas tournament.

The victory punched their Olympic ticket but served notice too that Canada isn’t just happy to get to there. Earning their spot a year in advance is another step in their plan to make noise when they arrive.

"We’re going to go to the Olympics [but] we don’t want to just be there," said Kia Nurse, the 19-year-old phenom who was named tournament MVP. "We want to be up there on the podium … our veterans are the first ones to say: ‘We are going to get on that podium.’"

So it’s clear: As Canadian basketball heads into a brave new era with so much hope and promise for the swath of talent on the men’s side making a splash in the NBA, it’s the senior women’s national team that has taken the lead.

A dream three years in the making — to qualify for the Olympics at home — came off perfectly on Sunday night at the Saville Community Sports Centre in front of a raucous home crowd in a city that had embraced this team as their own in a country that would be wise to do the same.

When Canada Basketball decided to host the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship it was because they looked at their roster — young, talented and poised to break into the world’s elite — and figured the time was right to give them every advantage possible to smooth their path to Rio.

"It was huge [to play at home]," said Gaucher, who finished with eight points and seven rebounds in the final. "We’ve been in some crazy situations before but we already know what it’s like here, we’ve shot on these rims, we’ve lived in this hotel for months on end and that’s huge when you’re that comfortable."

Edmonton offered them both a place to train and — this past week — a place to compete and they responded the way champions do, playing every moment like it was their last while never for a second forgetting that there was something bigger at stake, a distant goal that they never wavered from.

Their win over Cuba was only step one. It ensured that they can spend the next 11 months plotting how to get on the podium in Brazil, something no Canadian women’s team has ever done and no Canadian basketball team of either gender has since the Canadian men took silver in the inaugural Olympic tournament in 1936.

There was backstory to Sunday night’s win. Canada had lost to Cuba in the final of the 2013 FIBA Americas championship after blowing them out in the preliminaries. This time Canada had pasted Cuba by 49 points on their way to posting a 5-0 record with an average margin of victory of 47 points.

It seemed unlikely that history could repeat itself, but Canada remained wary.

And in the early going it was a battle. Canada had scarcely trailed through the tournament to this point, but Cuba came out determined to test them. Canada trailed out of the gate in the first quarter and was down by as much as eight at one point. Even after a 16-0 run late in the first quarter and early in the second quarter Cuba kept the game close, trailing by just three with 1:18 left in the second period before Canada stretched their lead to 44-35 with a late surge before half.

Most concerning, Cuba started the second half on a 10-0 run and led Canada 50-49 with just over six minutes to play in the third.

But one of the reasons Canada has emerged as a clear medal contender at Rio next summer is they are a battle-hardened group. Most of this team played in the Olympics in 2012, which they got into after a last-gasp qualifying tournament. They finished fifth at the World Championships last year. They stared down a talented U.S. team to win gold at the Pan Am Games in July.

“It’s no accident we’re here,” said Thomaidis about her team, which was 11-0 on home soil this summer. “We’re very well prepared and we’ll be very well prepared [for the final] … but we’re not by any means a cocky team, we’re very humble, but we have a quiet confidence about us and there’s a ton of belief in each other based on what we’re seeing on the floor.”

Oh, and they’re good and will likely be getting better. The two key figures in what was certainly a team win were the backcourt tandem of Nurse and Miah-Marie Langlois — the only player on the team who played in the CIS, in her case as four-time national champion with the University of Windsor.

Nurse and Langlois are 19 and 23 years old, respectively — reflective of a team whose average age is just 25. With the game on the line Nurse scored eight points and Langlois six, while adding a steal and assisting on a pair of Nurse’s baskets as they sliced the Cuban defence at will, turning the game upside down with a 16-2 run. Nurse led Canada with 20 points while Langlois had 11 points and eight assists.

By the time they were done Canada led 65-54 heading into the fourth quarter and the rest was perfunctory. Canada’s depth shone as they slowly pulled away.

The team that will be competing in Rio meets every possible criteria that can be applied to the word. Through the first five games in Edmonton all 12 players were averaging at least five points a game (if you round up Katherine Plouffe’s 4.8 per game) and yet no one was averaging more than 11.6 points a game. Similarly, 10 of head coach Lisa Thomaidis’s charges were averaging at least three rebounds per game and none more than Miranda Ayim’s 5.6 per game, and every player averaged at least 10 minutes a game, with 11 averaging at least 14.

When the tournament all-star team was announced, at least six Canadians deserved consideration. Even in a tightly contested final 10 Canadians played at least 10 minutes.

In contrast, the Cubans had just six players averaging more than 14 minutes of floor time and six averaging at least five points per game coming into the contest and only seven players were on the floor for at least 10 minutes in the final.

It showed in the tournament as a whole and it showed in the final as Cuba wilted as Canada got stronger.

The night ended as it should: A crowd chanting, a wild celebration at centre court. Tears. And a medal ceremony with Canada getting their second gold of the summer to go with the one they won at the Pan Am Games in July.

These are heady days for Canadian basketball and our women are proving that we’re a nation to be reckoned with.

Don’t be surprised if next summer in Rio they find themselves on a podium again, with a medal that will carry the weight of history.