Opal hasn’t made contact with Cambage

AUSTRALIAN Opal, Cayla George, has opened up on the fallout from the side’s infamous pre-Tokyo Olympics campaign that led to the withdrawal of star centre Liz Cambage.

Cambage famously walked away from the side after being involved in an on-court incident during a warm-up game against Nigeria last July, with it since being revealed that the WNBA star told her opponents to “go back to your third world country” during the contest.

With those words leading to a formal reprimand from Basketball Australia, Cambage decided to step away from the side as the Opals struggled in her absence, failing to medal in Tokyo.

Since then, Cambage has stood firm in her decision to leave the national set-up, while in doing so she’s drawn the ire of big names in the basketball community including Andrew Bogut, Andrew Gaze and her former captain Jenna O’Hea.

As one of her ex-teammates, George told SEN 1170 Call Time that she has no interest in inviting Cambage back into the squad, adding that her issue with the star centre is that she allowed her teammates to face repercussions for actions they didn’t commit.

“Absolutely not, no, absolutely not,” George said in response to whether she had spoken to Cambage since the incident.

“This is the only thing I’ll say about it, when someone does something and they don’t really have any repercussions for it [it’s unfair].

“The only repercussions were put on all of us who actually tried to protect and do the most respectful thing… we are the ones that felt the repercussions and not the person that actually did the deed.

“Then that’s where I’ve got an issue because we’re the ones that have suffered and we didn’t do anything wrong.

“So, that’s where my issue is.”

After O’Hea revealed the true nature of the incident on ABC’s Offsiders, George moved to confirm those claims and added that she’s now at peace with the fallout despite it causing significant hurdles in the side’s Olympic journey.

“I’m absolutely in a good place with it. Like I don’t sleep over it at all,” George said.

“Well, I think Jenna [O’Hea] when she spoke on Offsiders, she kind of said all that needed to be said.

“There were a lot of rumours floating around about what happened, but that kind of cleared up with what Jenna said.

“That’s really what happened, and it was pretty traumatic.

“It’s just not something that you forget easily.”

Cambage is currently plying her trade for the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA.

 

– BY LACHLAN GELEIT/ SEN