L.A. Olympics official: Leaving Caitlin Clark off 2024 U.S. team 'missed opportunity'
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INDIANAPOLIS â Casey Wasserman, president of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, said Saturday night that the USA Basketball decision to not put Caitlin Clark on the 2024 Olympic team was âa missed opportunity.â
âI think itâs a missed opportunity because sheâs clearly a generational talent at a time when the world was ready for it,â Wasserman, also head of the sports marketing and management company bearing his name, said at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials.
âThere have been incredible talents in the world, shame on all of us, the world wasnât in a place to embrace that,â Wasserman said. âTake Diana (Taurasi) or Breanna Stewart, or some of our (Wasserman) clients who are going to be on the team. They are dominant at a level thatâs never been seen before but the world wasnât ready to fill a building like Caitlin Clark did for whatever, the Final Four.
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âNow you have both those things and so thatâs a powerful opportunity and I just think it would have been an opportunity to elevate the womenâs team but I understand the other side of it, which is itâs an independent process and itâs hard to get in the way of telling (the coach and the committee) what to do.â
Said Wasserman: âI understand both sides of the issue but purely as an opportunity to showcase a generational talent to the world, clearly. But I totally get both sides of it. If it were simple, we wouldnât be debating it.â
Wasserman did say the timing of the USA Basketball national team training camp, which was held in Cleveland at the same time that Clarkâs Iowa team was playing in the Womenâs Final Four, was not ideal.
âUnfortunately, I think something USA Basketball needs to look at is the qualification process for the players if you have athletes going deep into the NCAA tournament, it makes it really difficult to participate in the process, so you donât even necessarily get the opportunity that others do,â he said.
âWhether she should have been on or not, she didnât really have the chance to be on the court at the time in those moments to be judged in the same way. And thatâs a hard thing for an athlete.â
As the person running the next Summer Olympics, Wasserman definitely wants to see Clark in L.A.
âI certainly hope sheâll be at the 2028 Olympics,â he said. âSheâs a great star and the future of American basketball is bright.â