Opals basketball star Liz Cambage was wrong to take such a hostile stance against a lack of representation in an Australian Olympic team photo, gold medallist Todd Woodbridge says.
Cambage seemingly threatened to boycott the looming Tokyo Games over a sponsors' photo shoot featuring just one non-white athlete, rugby sevens player Maurice Longbottom.
"HOW AM I MEANT TO REPRESENT A COUNTRY THAT DOESN'T EVEN REPRESENT ME #whitewashedaustralia," Cambage wrote on Instagram. "Y'all really do anything to remove POCs from the forefront when it's black athletes leading the pack until I see you doing more @ausolympicteam imma sit this one out."
The Australian Olympic Committee apologised and promised change, yet Cambage branded the apology meaningless and said: "Australia, wake the f--- up. I'm not playing these games no more, I'm not.
"Australia, if you have an issue with the words, you are the issue. And, you can kiss my black arse. I don't give a f--- about what you have to say about me."
Woodbridge, a tennis doubles gold medallist at Atlanta 1996, said that Cambage did not need to be so confrontational to spark change.
"My initial thought was, 'Oh, don't do it that way'," Woodbridge said on Sports Sunday.
"Why do it that way? Why do it with the anger and the threats? You cannot threaten to pull out of representing your country, you've got the privilege to be there and to do something special.
"If you want to do something like that, why don't you do it the way Naomi Osaka did it? I mean, she changed the world. She didn't have to get out there and use language and threaten us all that we've done the wrong thing.
"I'd say, good on you for standing up for it but there are ways. We've got another great ambassador here in Australia we just spoke about, Ash Barty; she does it the right way. That's not her style."
Yet former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons said that he was on Cambage's side.
"If she's done in the gentle way, if she said, 'Look, I've been thinking about this and I just don't think it's working', there'd be no breakthrough, there'd be no cut-through," he said on Sports Sunday.
"On this issue, she's right. The AOC is wrong, as acknowledged by John Coates, who apologised and the rest of it.
"Doing it the way she did it, she's had it up to here, she doesn't want to do this anymore so she's put it out there. We're all talking about it and she'll achieve change by being strong on it."
Cambage initially appeared unaware of the presence on Longbottom, an Indigenous man, in the photo. Once aware, she called him a "token POC" (person of colour).
"I just believe there was a bit of disrespect for the athletes in the photo, who rightfully deserved to be in that photo," Woodbridge said.
FitzSimons responded: "That's because you're such a nice man, who's never been ... Todd, you nor I have ever been in a position of having been a minority that's been publicly disrespected in that manner, so we've got not idea what that's like.
"That's her, all her life. She's had it up to here, she's said so and through that, she's achieving change."
Woodbridge countered: "Talk about marketing - that was a sponsors' thing. You think sponsors ... they're gonna go, 'Oooh, we might just stay clear of that."
FitzSimons: "If you we Nike or somebody, you'd look at her and go, 'Wow'.
Woodbridge: "See, that's a brand that would but there's many that wouldn't."
Women's surfing great Layne Beachley said that while Cambage was being "antagonistic", she had stood up and achieved change.
"This argument, this discussion has been had at the table for a long period of time but to have someone of such strength and significance stand up and actually speak about it and be so vocal about it, it's instigating change," Beachley said on Sports Sunday.
"I agree with you, Todd, it doesn't need to be done this way. But obviously Liz believed it does need to be this way and she's proven that by the response that the AOC [made]."
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from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/basketball/liz-cambage-olympic-boycott-threat-todd-woodbridge-peter-fitzsimons-reaction/f595aeaa-7298-4d59-bd14-390ad04bd1e7
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