Kristy's Story
28-year-old guard Kristy Wallace knows a thing or two about things not going her way.
She was on track to follow her long-held dream of playing professional basketball and one day representing Australia after being a standout at Baylor University in Texas, USA.
In the last year of her five-year college career as co-captain at Baylor she ruptured her ACL, and while she managed to comeback from that to play with the Canberra Capitals nine months later in the 2018-19 WNBL season - the comeback lasted all of two games before the same ACL was torn again.
In April 2018 she was selected in the WNBA Draft as the no.16 overall pick to the Atlanta Dream. Since then she admitted before the draft she'd lost hope of ever playing in the WNBA, and was forced to consider retirement, starting her rehabilitation journey with the Victorian Institute of Sport originally just hoping to run again.
The Dream held onto Kristy through her injury rehab and through her return to basketball via the WNBL1 and WNBL, where she won the 2021-22 sixth woman of the year. A coveted Opals debut followed came in 2021, a month after the Tokyo Olympics and she was part of Australia's bronze-medal winning Asia Cup team.
By 2022 Kristy was called up to make her WNBA debut. Playing 29 games for Atlanta in the 2022 she started 18 of those and had a close tie with assistant coach Paul Goriss, who coached Kristy at the Capitals.
More Opals appearances have followed, which included competing in a World Cup on home soil in 2022 and claiming another bronze medal.
Kristy moved to Indiana in 2023 after a trade sent her to the Fever where she began playing alongside WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark.
A tenacious defender, Sandy Brondello selected Kristy to make her Olympic debut for Australia at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Kristy 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.
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