At a certain point, it's easy for the sheer scale of it to just wash over you. The U.S. women's national team has won seven straight Olympic gold medals. It hasn't lost a single game in Olympic competition since falling to the Unified Team in the semifinals — back in 1992. That's three decades and 55 games without a single loss, and at the Paris Games, the U.S. will look to become the first team, in any sport, to win eight consecutive golds. This has been a quite literally unprecedented run of dominance.

And yet, as they approach the opening game of group play against Japan on July 29, the players themselves aren't taking anything for granted. They understand that this eighth gold will be their toughest one yet.

"It's probably the least amount of preparation we've had going into an Olympics because of our schedule and WNBA," Diana Taurasi said ahead of the start of competition. 

That's not an exaggeration: With the WNBA only pausing its season last week, this roster has had precious little time to gel, playing its first pre-Paris tune-up game on July 20 — just nine days before having to face the same Japan team they beat in the 2020 gold-medal game in Tokyo. That's not a lot of time for a team to get on the same page.

"You really have to be the most unselfish you've ever been in your career, and it takes that from everyone because we had to forge this chemistry pretty quickly," Taurasi said.

"When it's an Olympic year, it's always tough because we're locked into our WNBA team for the first 25 games of the season and now that we've made it to the Olympic break, we need to switch gears a little bit," Breanna Stewart added.

"Just getting the chemistry, just getting the feel, understanding that we're playing with people that we don't normally play with. We want to go out, we want to work and get everything firing on all cylinders."

The rest of the world, by contrast, is only getting better, and has had the U.S. in their sights for three years.

"It's been three years that we've only talked about this," France's Gabby Williams said. "This has consumed our entire lives."

Any air of invincibility the U.S. might have felt took a real hit in February, when the Americans needed a last-second tip-in from Stewart to sneak past Belgium in an exhibition game. That same Belgium squad now finds itself in Group C with the U.S., an ideal chance to announce itself on the global stage.

"Everyone is a threat, the competition is so high," Napheesa Collier said. "France is always really hard, our own bracket's really hard with Japan, Belgium and Germany. There's a lot of great teams, so we're definitely not taking anyone lightly."

To be clear, the U.S. still has the most talented roster in the world, with three WNBA MVPs in Taurasi, Stewart and A'ja Wilson as well as newcomers like Sabrina Ionescu and Kelsey Plum. Gold remains the standard, and this team welcomes the challenge. 

As Brittney Griner said, when asked if there were any opponents she feared in Paris: "I’m not really afraid of anything but death."