Sacrifice worth it for Canada's women's basketball team
Lizanne Murphy one of several veterans who has seen the program rise over the years
By Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press
Lizanne Murphy is a heart-on-her-sleeve kind of player, an emotional leader for Canada's women's basketball team.
Ask her about the journey from the leaner years of a decade ago to now standing possibly on the cusp of success the team has never seen, and she struggles to hold back the tears.
It's a losing battle.
"It would be like a dream come true, it's all I've thought about for a really long time. But it would just mean that ... the process is worth it," the 32-year-old Murphy said as the tears came. "It's been a hard road. It's taken a lot of sacrifice from some of the older players. We were here when there was no money, not a lot of resources at all, but everyone committed to making this program better.
'Proof that hard work pays off'
"So it is proof that hard work pays off. And that might be like a very cliched thing, but it would be really worth it to see the dream from 10, 15 years ago come to fruition now.
On a recent afternoon, Canada's finest women's basketball players were wrapping up practice just south of downtown Edmonton, their home away from home for the better part of four years. They've spent so many nights, two-to-a-room, at the same hotel, they know the staff by name.
They've been quietly working towards one goal: a medal in Rio.
For the younger players such as Kia Nurse and Nirra Fields, a podium performance would be just the tip-off to even more success for a growing women's program that saw a record four drafted into the WNBA this year.
But for the veterans such as Murphy, Kim Gaucher and Shona Thorburn, it would be the realization of a dream they could barely have imagined back when they first donned the Maple Leaf.
"You have dreams, and we had a dream 12 years ago, and it was just a dream," said Thorburn, the team's veteran point guard. "A dream that you never thought would be realistic, or you could accomplish."
Rio berth followed Pan Am breakthrough
The Canadians' notoriety came at last summer's Pan American Games, where they won a first-ever gold. Nurse became a star, and carried Canada's flag in the closing ceremonies.
A couple of weeks later, Canada booked its berth in Rio with a victory at the FIBA Americas tournament.
The women are ranked No. 9 in the world but recently swept No. 8 China — their first opponent in Rio on Saturday — in three dominant performances.
Four years ago, Canada earned the very last spot in the Olympic tournament by winning a last-chance qualifier just a month before the London Games opened. They would reach the quarter-finals in London, only to be knocked out by a mighty American team.
This time around, having a full year to train with their Olympic spot already secure has made all the difference.
"It was actually really cool to know what to expect, and to go in the year before and know that we have this to work on specifically ... to help us get better, more fit, stronger to be ready for the Olympics," said Tamara Tatham.