Cambage makes stand for diverse Australia
MELBOURNE: Australia has a good chance to clinch gold in the women’s basketball at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics but the nation is unlikely to win any medals for racial tolerance, according to outspoken centre Liz Cambage.
The imposing 6 - foot- 8- inch (2.03m) Cambage has never shied away from confrontation, whether staring down the world’s best on court or battling with social media trolls in her downtime.
In February, Cambage felt moved to publicly call out one of her national team mates for wearing ‘blackface’ at post-season celebrations for her Melbourne basketball club.
While humiliating for Australia forward Alice Kunek, who said her costume was intended to be a tribute to American hip-hop icon Kanye West, the episode was also bruising for Cambage.
The 24-year- old, whose father is Nigerian, was bombarded with abuse on her social media accounts for being too ‘thin-skinned’ after she posted that she was ‘shocked and disturbed’ by her team mate’s action.
“If I don’t call (racism) out, who’s going to do it?” Cambage, who won bronze with Australia’s ‘Opals’ at London, said in an interview with Reuters.
“People are scared to take a stand. If you do take a stand you receive backlash.
“I guess I’m lucky I learned quite young not to really care what people say. I’ve learnt young to take a stand if I feel like something’s wrong.
“I’m sick of seeing people get hurt and I’m sick of seeing people being made fun of.
“We teach kids that bullying is wrong and I don’t think there’s any difference when you’re an adult.”
Camb ag e sp e a k s f r om experience, having come out to Australia with her mother at a young age and struggled to fit in at her school on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne.
A head taller than other girls of her age in a white- majority community, Cambage was taunted for her appearance and found it difficult to make friends.
She was pushed into basketball by her mother who hoped it would help her build confidence.
Although initially reluctant to take it seriously, her natural talent was obvious to coaches and she was offered a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport, the national training centre for elite athletes in Canberra, when just 15.
Selected by Tulsa Shock in 2011 as the second draft pick in the WNBA, Cambage played in the United States before her Olympic debut at London the following year, where she made waves with a dunk against Russia in a preliminary round match. The one-handed jam was said to be the first ever recorded by a woman at the Olympics. — Reuters