When Ally Wilson steps on court in Paris she will be representing her country, family and the women who came before her.
A proud Ngarrindjeri woman, Wilson will become the fourth Indigenous female basketballer to wear the green and gold at an Olympics, joining basketball royalty Rohanee Cox (Beijing, 2008), Tully Bevilaqua (2008) and Leilani Mitchell (2016, 2020).
“It’s so special to be amongst these incredible women,” Wilson said.
“I remember as a kid when Rohanee went to the Olympics, she had an Aboriginal flag with her when the Opals won a silver medal, and then I got to play with her at Sydney and that was a big thing. I also played with Leilani in a championship in Sydney.
“Representation is super important and you can’t be what you can’t see so for me to have seen it with Rohanee and now little girls and boys will be able to turn on the TV and see me represent Australia at an Olympics is very cool and very important.”
Just like she did at the 2022 Commonwealth Games when the Gangurrus 3x3 team claimed a bronze medal, Wilson will be flying the flags on the biggest sporting stage.
“I took the Aboriginal flag and also the flag of my people, the Ngarrindjeri people, over there and that’s something I’ll try and do at the Olympics,” she explains.
“It’s really important to me.”
Paris, and the Gangurrus’ Olympic debut, is a long way from Murray Bridge in country South Australia where Wilson’s love of the game began.
“I played for a club in Murray Bridge called Falcons and it was an all-Indigenous basketball club. If you were Aboriginal that’s who you played for and me and all my brothers and sisters played for them,” she said.
“That was my first basketball team and then I went down to Adelaide and played in teams as I got older and basketball became more serious but Falcons was where it all began for me and where I have fond memories.”
