Sparks center Cambage denies using racial slur

Los Angeles Sparks center Liz Cambage has denied directing racial slurs toward Nigerian women’s basketball players while playing for the Australian national team in a closed-door July scrimmage before the Tokyo Olympics, writes Matt Bonesteel of The Washington Post.

The Sunday Telegraph obtained video that shows Cambage — the daughter of a Nigerian father and Australian mother — elbowing a Nigerian player in the head and slapping another player across the face during the scrimmage last July in Las Vegas a day before the WNBA All-Star Game. She then calls the players “monkeys” and tells them to “go back to your third-world country.”

In an Instagram post Sunday, Cambage called the Telegraph account “inaccurate and misleading” and said she “did not use the racial slur towards the Nigerian team that has been circulating.”

“After I unintentionally fouled a Nigerian player on court I was then physically assaulted by this player on the sideline of my bench,” Cambage wrote. “I was hit in the face and pushed to the ground but I walked away. Prior to the game I asked to sit out because I was concerned about my mental and physical health, which I have addressed publicly. We did not have professional referees to manage and prioritise both teams’ safety during this highly physical scrimmage.

“This is not an excuse or justification to the events that unfolded or my actions, however, I feel that a full picture of the environment that led to this outcome must be shared.”

Cambage pulled out of last year’s Olympics two days after the scrimmage and only 11 days before Australia’s first game, saying she was a “long way” from her physical and mental peak. She said she had been experiencing panic attacks for the previous month, had been neither sleeping nor eating and had been taking medication to help with anxiety.

In May 2021, Cambage threatened to boycott the Games after a promotional photo shoot featuring Australian Olympians and Paralympians failed to include any athletes of color, and the Telegraph report says Cambage told the Nigerian players before the scrimmage that she wished she was playing for Nigeria and not Australian because her teammates were racists. The Telegraph adds that Cambage apologized to the Nigerian players a day after the scrimmage, though one Nigerian player said she didn’t think it was sincere.

Australia would end up winning only one of four games in Tokyo but advanced to the quarterfinals, where the Opals were eliminated by the United States, the second straight Olympic quarterfinal elimination after medaling in five straight Games (1996 to 2012).

In November, Basketball Australia reprimanded Cambage after conducting an investigation of the incident during the scrimmage but said she remained eligible to play for the national team at the FIBA World Cup, which will be held in September in Australia. But in December, Cambage posted a story to her Instagram in which she told Basketball Australia that she has “zero” interest in returning to the national team.