MIES (Switzerland) - There have been few elite athletes quite as talented or packing as much personality as Liz Cambage of Australia and it was back in 2009 when she left her calling card at the FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup in Bangkok.
Although it was perhaps more than merely a calling card. The center put her name up in neon lights, alongside the sound of a siren when she posted a a staggering 38 point tally in the group stage in Thailand.
The fact that it was achieved against a fellow powerhouse nation like France made the hype surrounding Cambage all the more legit.
Her sheer size, skill and desire to dominate inside the paint made her a truly unstoppable force - something the women's game would eventually see translated onto the biggest stages at the senior level.
It was on the second day of action that Cambage erupted, dropping 38 points on her opponents and completing a monstrous double-double with 10 boards. She could and maybe should have had netted 40 plus points, but missed six free-throws in the contest.
Eventually averaging more than 20.0 points per game in the Thai capital, she departed as the tournament's leading scorer for the fifth place Gems. Cambage turned heads in a big way in what was the only FIBA youth tournament she ever played in.
The excitement around her projection to become a major global star was already built on solid foundations, but her epic showing against France in particular had poured even more fuel into the Cambage hype machine.
Just a year later, she was balling at the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup proper and massing double-digits at the 2010 edition. It showed that despite her young age, she was already the real deal at the senior level too.
Fast forward a couple of years later and it was at London 2012 when she truly catapulted herself into the mainstream with a historic Olympic moment for the Opals. Namely an iconic first ever dunk by a women's player at the Games that went viral.
The eyes of sports fans around the globe were transfixed on Cambage and remained there for some time. By 2018 at the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup in Tenerife, Spain, she was playing the best basketball of her career.
She almost single-handedly put the Opals on her back and carried them to the title game where they won silver. She poured in almost 24.0 points per outing and nobody could keep pace with her displays, with her 33-point show in the Semi-Finals against Spain one of the all-time great performances in the competition.
Cambage and the Opals would eventually continue their respective journey's on two different roads. But there is no denying that the FIBA U19 Worlds back in 2009 was a pivotal launchpad in her incredible skywards trajectory from rising star to bonafide global superstar.
FIBA