Aussie Liz Cambage Becomes First Woman to Dunk in Olympic History (Video)

There is a weight of expectation on the shoulders of the Australian women's basketball team.

They have developed a terrific Olympic rivalry with the American women and were runners-up to them the last three Olympic Games.

They're hoping they can reverse those results and finally wrest the gold away from the dominant U.S. team at these Games.

That’s a long way off.

Their form hasn’t been great. They've beaten Great Britain, Brazil and Russia and suffered a surprise loss to France despite Belinda Snell’s buzzer-beating Hail Mary to take the game to overtime.

The Aussie team is built around veteran superstar Lauren Jackson and relative newcomer 6'8" centre Liz Cambage.

Jackson's Olympic legacy is well established—this being her fourth Games. She is also known for her personal rivalry with Lisa Leslie, which started at the Sydney Games in 2000 when the upstart Jackson ripped out Leslie's hair extensions mid-game.

While Leslie made her mark as the first woman to dunk in a WNBA game—among many other things—she didn't manage to repeat the effort at the Olympics.

In Friday's clash with Russia, Cambage, a newcomer to the Olympic Games, became the first woman to slam down a dunk in Olympic competition.

The moment came with a bit over six minutes remaining in the third period against the Russian women.

She was inexplicably given a clear lane to drive to the basket, received the ball from tiny veteran Kristi Harrower, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Cambage simply strode up to the basket and put it down. Russian Becky Hammon had a brief thought about trying to upset the move, but decided against getting in the way of someone a foot taller and 80 lbs heavier.

Good choice.

The Aussies have a long way to go before they can really think about Olympic gold, but after Friday, they have a golden moment to take home.