Gasol's first competition with the senior Spain national basketball team was the 2001 EuroBasket tournament, after having previously won the 1998 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship and 1999 FIBA Under-19 World Championship with the Spanish junior teams. Being considered, against his own will, the leader of the team, Gasol ended up with the bronze medal in the competition. Gasol has since had much success with the Spanish team, winning the 2006 FIBA World Championship and the 2009 and 2011 EuroBasket tournaments, being chosen as the Most Valuable Player in the first two; he also won silver medals at the 2003 and 2007 EuroBasket, and the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. Gasol was also the highest-scoring player of the 2004 Summer Olympics, and Spain's flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, replacing the injured Rafael Nadal. In 2014, Gasol was named to the All-tournament team of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. In the 2015 EuroBasket, Gasol was named the MVP of the competition, after some amazing performances, averaging 25.6 points and 8.8 rebounds per game (he was the competition leader for points per game, and 4th in rebounds per game). During the knockout matches of the competition, Gasol inspired the Spanish side which was missing many of its stars like Ricky Rubio, Juan Carlos Navarro, Álex Abrines, and his brother Marc Gasol. Gasol scored 40 points in the semifinal against France, which was half of his team's points. The 35-year-old player was also named the competition's leader for blocked shots per game (2.3). On September 7, 2017, in a game against Hungary, Gasol became FIBA EuroBasket's all-time leading scorer, passing Tony Parker with 1,033 points. He ended up at 1,183 total points scored at the EuroBasket.