Basketball WNBA’s Brink suffers ACL injury ahead of Olympics

(Reuters) – Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink, who was named to Team USA’s 3×3 basketball squad for this year’s Paris Olympics, has suffered a serious knee injury, the WNBA team said on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old Brink, whom the Sparks selected with the second pick of the WNBA Draft in April, tore ligaments during her team’s game on Tuesday in Connecticut.

“You never think it will happen to you. And despite all the hard work it sometimes does,” Brink wrote in a social media post. “This is hard to fathom, but I know it will only make me stronger.

“I will not go off the rails and I will continue to love this life. I am not defined by basketball, but it is something I love deeply and I will work every day to get back to it.”

Brink, who won a gold medal for Team USA at the 2023 FIBA ​​3×3 World Cup in Vienna, averaged 7.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in 15 games for a Sparks team that sat at the bottom of the standings with a record from 4-11.

(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, Editing by Ed Osmond)