Darcee ready to give her all
SHOT after shot, Darcee Garbin keeps finding the net.
There is no one around the 188cm forward. Everyone else has gone home. But still Garbin fires at the hoop.
She picks up the ball heads into the post, and starts the routine again. Shot after shot.
It’s been a month since the Fire took the court in the WNBL.
But Garbin only took a week off. She knew there was work to be done.
And it is the extra work she has put in this off-season, which also includes daily gym sessions, that will give the Opal hopeful an edge when the Australian side heads into camp.
Garbin along with Fire teammate Tess Madgen were both named in a 19-woman Opals squad ahead of the Tokyo Olympics later this year.
It is a star-studded squad that includes veteran Opal Liz Cambage as well as stars Rebecca Allen, Leilani Mitchell and Jenna O’hea.
The squad is expected to be cut down after an intensive training camp on the Gold Coast at the end of the month.
And it will be at the camp where Garbin’s extras in the off-season should come to the fore. “I am super excited for it, but still a bit nervous. The Olympics is something I have dreamt about since I was a kid,” she said. “We were told pretty early on there would be a full squad camp, so we always had an inkling we would get named.
“I just have to keep working hard, get in the gym and keep strong. It is about doing everything to control the things I can control. It is so close and only a few people get the chance to go to the Olympics. I just have to be as good as I can be.”
Garbin has put the Opals before a prospective European deal, after choosing to head to the camp despite it getting in the way of an opportunity in France. That is her commitment to Australia.
It is also why she spends any spare hour she has looking up at that rim.
“You definitely want to be better than you have been,” she said. “Watching that first game of the WNBL grand final series, it made me realise it has been such a long time since we were playing.
“That really motivates you to be up there in the top of the league. That first week I had off, I was itching to get back into it.
“I have just been going to the courts shooting by myself, working on my post game. I go to the gym every day. It is my job and with the camp coming up and a chance to go to the Olympics, that motivates me.”
The Townsville Fire MVP has signed on with Townsville Flames in the NBL1 North competition for the winter.