Opals teammates react to Liz Cambage’s Olympic boycott threat

Liz Cambage’s former and current teammates have weighed in after the Opals star threatened to boycott the Olympics last week.

Australian basketball legend Lauren Jackson has praised Liz Cambage for speaking her mind but is confident there won’t be any need for her to follow through on her Olympic boycott threat.

Last week Cambage said she would “sit out” the Tokyo Games in protest over Australian team photo shoots she accused of being examples of “whitewashing”, which did not represent the diverse backgrounds of the country’s athletes.

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Jackson said it was great to see her former teammate voicing her concerns but said it wouldn’t come to the stage where she would actually boycott the Olympics.

“Liz is one of the finest players that we’ve ever had representing us,” Jackson told NCA Newswire on Monday.

“She has been a core part of the Opals for the past decade, and it would be fitting to see her on the dais in Tokyo.

“The Opals are ranked second in the world and have a really great opportunity to claim the gold medal, in both Tokyo and the World Cup next year.

“I really hope that she is a part of that group — she is very important to the team.

“The AOC have responded and are looking at constitutional change and from my perspective I support the right of any person to express their opinions in a constructive and respectful manner.

“Liz has got a platform and it is a very important issue, and I support her fighting racial inequality.”

Jackson is on Cambage’s side.

The Opals are a red-hot medal chance and will be eyeing off gold in Tokyo. Cambage is an out-and-out superstar and without her, the team’s chances of success will take a major hit.

Lauren Nicholson will be heading to Japan with the Opals but says Cambage’s controversy hasn’t been a distraction.

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We are an inclusive sport,” Nicholson told the Sydney Morning Herald. “She obviously adds a lot to the Opals. We are just focusing on the Olympics and what we can do to win.”

Cambage shared two images to Instagram — one of athletes showing off Australia’s uniform for the Games and another promoting the official underwear sponsor of the team — while launching her attack.

“If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times, HOW AM I MEANT TO REPRESENT A COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T EVEN REPRESENT ME,” Cambage wrote.

She doubled down later on Friday night in a video posted to social media.

“Australia, wake the f*** up,” she said. “I’m not playing these games no more, I’m not.

“It’s sad, the whitewashing is sad. Your black athletes lead you everywhere. Indigenous athletes are some of the best athletes we have. An y’all don’t use them at all.”

Cambage took issue with the athletes selected to represent Australia in promotional shoots.

She wants more people of colour to be recognised.

On the weekend Cambage went further by dragging a former coach and past players into the furore, claiming to have received threats.

Aussie tennis legend Todd Woodbridge took umbrage with Cambage’s approach, saying making her protest in such a public way was not the right way to go about it.

“My initial thought was, don’t do it that way,” Woodbridge said on Sports Sunday. “Why do it that way? Why do it with the anger and the threats? You cannot threaten to pull out of representing your country, you’ve got the privilege to be there and to do something special.

“If you want to do something like that, why don’t you do it the way Naomi Osaka did it? I mean, she changed the world. She didn’t have to get out there and use language and threaten us all that we’ve done the wrong thing.

“I’d say, good on you for standing up for it but there are ways.

“I just believe there was a bit of disrespect for the athletes in the photo, who rightfully deserved to be in that photo.”

Cambage is one of the best players in Australia.