Liz Cambage says she’s grown from turbulent 12 months and would love to bring home Olympic gold

AFTER a turbulent year, Liz Cambage is settled, focused and stronger than ever. And she’s ready to help try to lead the Opals to their first ever gold medal at the Olympics.

ELIZABETH Cambage has travelled so far in such a short space of time even she can joke about the turbulent past.

This week Opals basketballer Cambage jetted out of Australia exactly a year on from her greatest controversy.

Cambage was dropped for the Rio qualifiers by coach Brendan Joyce after attending the Splendour in the Grass rock concert rather than an Opals team camp.

She joked this week that she wasn’t even tempted to jump flights to head to Byron Bay, instead soaring across the ocean to a Dallas training camp.

Soaring is an appropriate metaphor, according to Joyce.

He has become Cambage’s mentor and confidante and believes she has never been mentally or physically stronger.

Liz Cambage: “I feel sorry for my opposition having to go up against me but when I step off the court I’m a totally different person.” Picture: Swisse photo shoot

Sidelined by an achilles tear on the eve of the 2014 world championships and open about a battle with depression, the 24-year-old is finally ready to peak.

“I guess I have matured. It is four years on and I am still the same crazy kid deep down inside but I am more of a force on and off the court,’’ she said this month.

“Basketball didn’t come naturally to me. There were tears and tantrums and I had no co-ordination whatsoever.”

Joyce knows with basketball goddess Lauren Jackson finally succumbing to injuries, 203cm centre Cambage is the centrepiece of his Rio campaign.

To harden her body Joyce has enlisted AFL fitness guru Bohdan Babijczuk, the man Hawthorn Brownlow Medallist Shane Crawford credits for his remarkable running powers.

Cambage is ready to peak in Rio. Picture: Getty Images

“She has certainly grown over the last couple of years and like all athletes she has gone through her ups and downs and questioned themselves,’’ Joyce said.

“But she is going really well in the last month. She is in a really good headspace.

“Her training is really good and she has been exceptional.

“Even between camps she is working on her game, I have had her working with Bohdan on her running program and strength and conditioning.

“There is no better guy than him — he improves your technique, he makes you quicker and more explosive. I vouch for him big time.

“She is getting better every day and it’s really positive.”

Cambage is aware she has become a lightning rod for controversy, upset to be criticised for calling out teammate Alice Kunek for painting her face black for an end-of-season party.

Cambage, whose father is Nigerian, tweeted she was “shocked” and “disturbed”, with Kunek apologising for her lack of understanding.

Joyce subsequently admitted Cambage could have dealt with the issue away from social media’s glare.

But in the series of Opals camps these past months those issues have been confronted and addressed, leading to a tight-knit Opals group of 12.

Joyce says it can be tough growing up under the intense glare of public interest, where your mis-steps and achievements are all harshly judged.

“I think it’s tough. Once you establish yourself as a major player in the national team, people know you as they do the top footballers around the country,’’ he says.

“People want your autograph, they are going to stop you on the street, they are going to ask questions, they are going to feel like they want to know you.”

As Cambage admits, she was the baby of the London 2012 side in a tournament where she recorded the first dunk by a female athlete in an Olympics.

Now she needs to step it up as the team’s most powerful presence.

“It’s a pretty cool thing to have on your resume, the first women to have a slam dunk at the Olympics,’’ she says.

“It was just a natural thing, I didn’t think about it. It was an out-of-body experience.”

“I would love to bring home a gold medal for Australia, that would be history for our women’s basketball team and that’s the real history I want to make.”

Originally published as Liz Cambage says she’s grown from turbulent 12 months and would love to bring home Olympic gold