Facing a major threat to their Olympic women’s basketball dynasty, the United States shut down 2.03m centre Liz Cambage in the second half and beat Australia 86-73 late Thursday to reach the gold medal game.

The four-time defending champion Americans stretched their Olympic win streak to 40 games and will try to claim a fifth gold medal in a row Saturday against unbeaten France, which downed Russia 81-64 in the other semi-final.

“It is a great thing that we have another opportunity to win gold,” US guard Sue Bird said.

“It’s harder to get there than it is to play the gold medal game.”

The Aussies made sure of that, giving the US Women’s NBA stars their hardest fight by shooting 20-of-33 from the field in the first half, 61 per cent, and having Cambage strike for 19 points as the Opals led 47-43 at half-time.

Cambage didn’t score a point in the second half, the passing lines to her cut off by speedy guards and physical defence from Tina Charles and Candace Parker denying her the inside position that made her unstoppable early.

The US women, who have not lost at the Olympics since the 1992 semi-finals, improved to 16-0 against Australia in Olympic and world championship play. They are 8-1 against Russia and 6-1 against France in the same events.

Australia lost to the US women in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 finals but faced the Americans a round earlier this year after losing a group game to France.