Cayla George

Cayla George grew up around Adelaide Hills, South Australia and whilst living there she attended Mt Barker High and Cabra College. Cayla started off playing netball, however once she made the switch to basketball she didn’t look back. She began playing for the Eastern Mavericks and continued to love the game as well as the overall physicality it brought.

After conversations with Kentucky and Miami US Colleges, Cayla decided to pursue her professional career at home in Australia’s WNBL – she was 16 years of age when she started playing with the Australian Institute of Sport. From here Cayla’s career took off. 2007 saw her win Rookie of the Year as she averaged a double-double per game, 15 points and 11 rebounds.

Cayla has since played for many teams in many accomplished leagues. In the WNBL she’s gone on to play for Adelaide Lightning, Logan Thunder, Townsville Fire, Melbourne Boomers and Sydney Flames. In France she’s played for both Pay d'Aix Basket and Nantes Rezé Basket, she also had a stint playing for Sopron in Hungary.

In the WNBA over in the US she has represented the Phoenix Mercury, the Dallas Wings and the Las Vegas Aces.

Cayla’s exciting career thus far has made for many monumental highlights – such as being a part of the Opals for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. In nine minutes per game she averaged 4.6 points and 2.2 rebounds throughout the Rio tournament.

Cayla was part of the silver-medal winning Opals 2018 World Cup side – their best finish since winning the gold in 2006. She's also won three WNBL championships.

At the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in 2021, the Opals played Belgium (L 85-70), China (L 76-74) and Puerto Rico (W 96-69) in the group phase. In the quarter-finals they squared off against the USA, losing to the eventual Olympic champions 79-55 and finishing 8th in the tournament.

Cayla played in all four matches averaging 13 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.3 steals in 26.8 minutes per game.

In 2022, Cayla won her third WNBL championship when she captained the Melbourne Boomers to title glory. Just months later she was part of the Opals team that won bronze at the FIBA World Cup played in Sydney, beating Canada 95-65 in the playoff for third.

A couple of weeks after the World Cup, Cayla started what she describes as the most important role of her life – mum to daughter Pearl.

Cayla and her husband Kailou, a Torres Strait Islander, have been together for 11 years and had trouble falling pregnant. In Torres Strait culture it is common for couples who have been unable to conceive to adopt a child carried by a relative. In this case, Pearl was carried by Cayla’s sister-in-law.

"In their culture, for generations, Island adoption has been very common," Cayla said.

"So essentially, if someone in the family has struggled to fall pregnant or is unable to fall pregnant, another family member can choose to gift a baby to that person."

As a mum, Cayla carried her good form into the 2022-23 WNBL season, where she was a runaway winner of the Suzy Batkovic Medal for league MVP. Cayla then returned to the WNBA and won a championship ring with Las Vegas.

Cayla started 2024 as a member of the Opals team that punched their tickets to Paris at an Olympic qualifying tournament in Belem, Brazil, with wins over Brazil, Germany and Serbia.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Cayla and the Opals recovered from a first up loss to a physical Nigeria team (75-62) to beat Canada (70-65) and the host nation France (79-72), which meant they automatically progressed to the knockout rounds.

A big win over Serbia in the quarter-finals (85-67) put them in a semis showdown against the USA, with the Americans' victory (85-64) sending the Opals to the bronze medal match against Belgium.

The Opals won the match 85-81 for the team's first Olympic medal since London 2012. Cayla played in all six matches off the bench, scored an average of seven points per game and knocked down 38% of her three pointers.