Lauren Jackson announces retirement from basketball

LAUREN Jackson has revealed the extent of her devastation when she was told she couldn’t go to Rio, refusing to get out of bed or speak to her parents.

Jackson was Australia’s flag bearer at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Picture: AFP PHOTO/SAEED KHAN

LAUREN Jackson’s dream of competing for gold at a fifth Olympic Games is over, with injury forcing Australia’s greatest female basketballer into retirement.

Jackson confirmed on Thursday she will not be going to Rio after failing to fully recover from successive knee surgeries and complications.

As soon as she was told there was no hope of heading to Brazil, the basketball great drove straight home to Albury from Melbourne.

“And I went to bed,” she told AAP after announcing her retirement on Thursday.

“I didn’t get up for four days.”

The 34-year-old was too devastated to even call her parents, Gary and Maree, leaving it up to Basketball Australia’s high performance manager and former Opals coach Jan Stirling to break the news.

“I couldn’t speak to anyone,” she said.

“David Young, my surgeon, was probably the first person I talked to.

“I called him and told him David Hughes (chief medical officer at the Australian Institute of Sport) had said in our group meeting that I had no hope of playing ever again.” Forget playing.

Even walking, sitting, standing up is painful for Jackson.

“Everything I do hurts,” she said.

“It’s degenerated so fast that nobody could’ve seen this happening.”

The 34-year-old had undergone testing earlier this week ahead of the Opals’ first team camp at Canberra’s AIS, where she made the announcement.

“It really is so surreal retiring here where it all began 19 years ago,” Jackson said.

“Today I’m announcing my retirement from the love of my life, basketball.

“Two years ago I hurt me knee playing in China, it wasn’t a terrible injury but it was enough — I pulled my meniscus out of the root of my bone.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal, nobody did.

“My knee ended up degenerating really really fast, I got arthritis pretty quickly and since then I’ve had multiple surgeries.”

Australian basketball legend Andrew Gaze described Jackson’s retirement as a “very, very sad day for Australian basketball”.

“We should celebrate and we wil celebrate it [her career] but she’s too young,” Gaze said on SEN radio, lamenting the timing of the decision “on the eve of the Olympic Games”.

Jackson was Australia’s flag bearer at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Picture: AFP PHOTO/SAEED KHAN

“She was the flag bearer for this great country in London, so she’s an iconic Australian female athlete,” Gaze added. “But unfortunately she said she won’t be able to get to Rio.

“For me it’s an emotional time because she is one of my heroes. She is fantastic. But unfortunately she said her body can no longer put her through the rigours of another Olympic campaign.

“It’s really, really disappointing but the good news is the Opals are still in a fantastic condition.

“They’ve still got a great opportunity in Rio, but it is a momentous day for Australian basketball.”

Jackson, a four-time Olympic medallist, knew she needed an “absolute miracle” to make the trip to Brazil but never gave up hope.

She came close to calling it quits in January after being hospitalised with an infection in her knee joint stemming from surgery.

That same month she was released from her WNBL contract with the Canberra Capitals, having managed to play just six games in the past five years.

Jackson first played for the Opals in 1997, the team’s youngest debutante at 16.

She went on to help them win silver at the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics, before claiming bronze at London — where she was also Australia’s flagbearer at the opening ceremony.

Both her parents, father Gary and mother Maree, also represented Australia in basketball.