Aus Basketballer Skips Training For Splendour; Dropped From Olympic Team

Australian basketball player Liz Cambage has been dropped from the team's upcoming Rio Olympic qualifiers after she attended Splendour In The Grass over the weekend and skipped the first day of training.

As Fairfax reports, the 23-year-old centre was set to return to the court this week for the first time in ten months after recovering from a ruptured achilles tendon, but the Opal team was notified that Cambage chose to head to the Byron Bay festival and would instead return to training on Monday. 

Teammate Rachel Jarry backed the selector's decision to drop Cambage. 

"It doesn't fit in with the culture we are building - you can't choose a music festival over a camp," Jarry said.

"She is letting her teammates down and I just wish she could have been a part of these games but it's not to be."

Basketball Australia released a statement on Sunday night announcing that Cambage would be ruled out from the Olympic qualifiers after she made herself unavailable for the upcoming games against Japan. 

The statement read: "As a consequence, Cambage is unavailable for selection for the upcoming FIBA Oceania Championships."