Australian Opals star Liz Cambage has opened up on the incidents leading up to her withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics.
The star centre made headlines during Opals’ training camp in Las Vegas in the lead-up to the games, having been involved in an altercation with the Nigerian women’s team and reportedly breaching the team’s COVID bubble to spend a night out partying.
With her actions forcing Basketball Australia into an investigation, Cambage decided to pull out of the journey to Tokyo altogether, citing mental health reasons.
With the games just passed, Cambage told HBO’s The Shop how hard it was for her to make the call.
“The Olympics is Everest for every athlete,” Cambage said.
“It was about to be my third, it was meant to be the one.
“Like, every Olympics is the one, Australia’s gonna get a gold medal, and I’m like, ‘I’m broken, guys’.
“I’m halfway through a WNBA season, I’ve been dealing with health issues, I’ve been having panic attacks and vomiting during WNBA games.
“My stress has been on a totally different level this year.”
Cambage says she was forced to take prescription medication to deal with the stress of last year’s COVID season.
“I really struggled with COVID last year. I was on pain killers, I’m on the Xanax again, and it’s like, ‘For what?’,” Cambage said.
“I can’t break myself.”
Cambage also revealed that she was on “suicide watch” following the stress of the 2016 games.
“End of 2016, I ended up on suicide watch after the Rio Olympics,” she added.
The loss of Cambage ultimately proved too tough for the Opals to recover from, losing in the quarter-finals to eventual gold medallists USA.
While there’s doubts about Cambage ever representing her country again, she said she’d go about her preparation differently if she makes a push for the 2024 games.
"If I go for another Olympic Games there's no way I can be a part of the WNBA," she said.
"There's no way I can play with a team for half a season."
The WNBA All-Star is back with her team the Las Vegas Aces ahead of the upcoming season.