Caitlin Clark made a splash in her rookie year in the WNBA, but she will reportedly not be taking her skills to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Team USA has not formally announced their women’s basketball roster for the upcoming Games, but multiple outlets report that Clark, 22, will not be among the athletes. According to NBC News, the United States will bring the likes of Brittney Griner, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart to France.
USA Today, meanwhile, cited two sources who were “longtime U.S. basketball veterans with decades of experience in the women’s Game” in their report. The insiders claimed that team management was concerned about how Clark’s legion of devoted fans would react to her potentially limited playing time considering the amount of other athletes on the team.
“We have not made any official announcement yet,” a spokesperson for Team USA told NBC News in a Saturday, June 8, statement.
Clark, for her part, has not addressed the reports.
Team USA previously announced this week that Cameron Brink, a member of Clark’s draft class, Rhyne Howard, Hailey Van Lith and Cierra Burdick will represent the U.S. in the women’s 3 x 3 event.
Clark was one of the top collegiate athletes for the University of Iowa’s team before entering the WNBA Draft earlier this year. She was the No. 1 pick, signing with the Indiana Fever.
“I got a little anxious there before the pick,” Clark gushed to ESPN after the draft round. “But, more than anything, I’m just grateful and lucky to have my family here and my friends over there, coaches up here. I’ve dreamed of this moment since second grade and it’s taken a lot of hard work [and] a lot of ups and downs, but more than anything, [I’m] trying to soak it in.”
She continued, “I think the biggest thing is that I always just believed in myself … [and] my parents always instilled confidence in me as a young girl.”
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Since joining the Fever, she’s helped them score multiple Game wins. Clark had her best Game yet on Friday, June 6, scoring 30 points and seven three-pointers at the Fever’s latest winning matchup against the Washington Mystics.
Clark had previously called playing in the Olympics a “dream.”
“USA Basketball, that’s your dream,” she told reporters in March. “You always want to grow up and be on the Olympic team. … People that are on that roster are people that I idolize and have idolized growing up. So just to be extended a camp invite is something you have to be proud of and celebrate and enjoy.”
