Caitlin Clark is speaking out about not making Team USA at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics.
While confirming multiple June 8 reports that said she will be left off the roster, which is expected to be formally announced June 11, the WNBA rookie sensation expressed support for the players that are included on the list.
“I’m excited for the girls that are on the team,” the Indiana Fever star told reporters, as seen in a video Indianapolis Star sports reporter Chloe Peterson shared June 9 on X. “I know it’s the most competitive team in the world and I know it could’ve gone either way.”
The 22-year-old Caitlin Clark said she received a phone call about the news before the reports came out and that she felt “no disappointment” upon learning she was left off the roster.
Fever coach Christie Sides told reporters Caitlin Clark received the call on the team bus and texted her about it.
“The thing she said was, ‘Hey coach, they woke a monster,'” she said, “which I thought was awesome.”
A source familiar with the decision had told NBC News that 12 WNBA veterans made the cut.
The insider said the list is made up of Olympic newbies Kahleah Copper, 29, from the Phoenix Mercury, the Connecticut Sun’s Alyssa Thomas, 32, and the New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu, 26, as well as nine players who competed in the 2020 Olympics the Las Vegas Aces’ Kelsey Plum, 29, Jackie Young, 26, Chelsea Gray, 31, and A’ja Wilson, 27, plus Liberty forward Breanna Stewart, 29, the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier, 27, Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd, 30, and Mercury stars Diana Taurasi, 41, and Brittney Griner, 33.
This will mark Griner’s third time at the Olympics and the first time the WNBA star will play professional basketball overseas since she was freed from a Russian penal colony in December 2022 in a prisoner exchange.
The athlete, who had played on a Russian team during the WNBA off-season, spent 10 months in detention in the country for carrying vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.
Clark said she will be rooting for Team USA to win their eighth Olympic gold medal for women’s basketball, adding, “I was a kid who grew up watching the Olympics, so it’ll be fun to watch them.”
She also said she hopes to be included on Team USA in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. “I think it just gives you something to work for,” she added. “Hopefully in four years, I can be there.”
Team USA’s first women’s basketball game, against Japan, is set to take part July 29.