Olympic Legends - Edwards: A legend heading to london

LONDON (Olympics) - If any young basketball players find themselves looking for inspiration at the 2012 London Olympics, they will not need to look far. The Team USA staff will include the most decorated Olympic basketball player on the planet.

Teresa Edwards has been named as the US Chef de Mission for United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and they could not have picked anyone who knows the task better.

Edwards played in five Olympic Games, winning gold at four of them and bronze at the other.

She celebrated her 32nd birthday by reading the Athlete’s Oath at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Games in her home state of Georgia.

Edwards did that despite having openly contemplated retirement from 1994 onwards - something she would continue to do despite playing on for another six years.

And Team USA can be grateful she did, as the guard put on a superb display in Atlanta, dishing out 8.0 assists per game while adding 6.9 points per game and 3.8 rebounds per game.

Edwards was only 20 when she played in her first Games in 1984, but by then was already three years into an incredible international career that would last almost 20 years and reap an incredible number of honours as she also won two FIBA World Championships in 1986 and 1990, as well as Pan-American gold in 1987.

In all, Edwards went 205-14 in a USA jersey, including a 46-0 run at major international tournaments between 1983 and 1991, and took gold at the 1984, 1988, 1996 and 2000 Games, while setting for bronze in 1992.

Edwards is both the youngest player ever to win Olympic gold, aged 20 in 1984, and the oldest, aged 36 in 2000.

Her achievements have seen her enter the US Olympic Hall of Game, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and, later this year, the Naismith Hall of Fame.

FIBA