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Gonzaga Women's Basketball

Gonzaga basketball star Yvonne Ejim earns spot on Team Canada for 2024 Olympic Games

Gonzaga's Yvonne Ejim, pictured during a 2024 game against Pacific, will be playing for Team Canada at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris later this month.   (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review)
From staff reports

From staff reports

Yvonne Ejim is headed to the Olympics.

The Gonzaga women’s basketball standout was one of 12 players named to Canada’s roster for the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

“I am so incredibly happy and overjoyed at the fact that I get to represent my country at the Olympic level and that I get to compete at that stage,” Ejim said in a news release.

“It was always a dream of mine ever since I started Canada Basketball and the fact that now I am living it is beyond what I imagined,” she said. “I am also so proud of myself for continuing to work until this point, but I think the best thing was all the people that supported me up until this point, including my family, all the teammates I’ve had, and coaches that I’ve been coached under. This truly would not have been possible without all of them, so I am grateful.”

Last season, the 6-foot-1 Ejim, a native of Calgary, Alberta, averaged 19.7 points and 8.7 rebounds for Gonzaga, which finished 32-4 and advanced to the Sweet 16. She’s the lone returning starter for GU next season.

This will be Team Canada’s eighth appearance in the Olympic women’s basketball tournament since it debuted at Montreal 1976. The Canadian women successfully qualified for their fourth consecutive Olympic Games by finishing third in the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament in Sopron, Hungary, in February.

Canada’s best Olympic result in women’s basketball was a fourth-place finish at Los Angeles in 1984. Fifth in the FIBA world rankings, Canada finished fourth at the most recent FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in 2022 and secured a bronze medal at the 2023 FIBA Women’s AmeriCup.

Last week, Canada defeated Portugal 91-65 in an exhibition game in Victoria, British Columbia.

The team will travel overseas to Belgium and Spain as it continues its training camp and exhibition schedule before arriving in France.

The women’s basketball tournament will take place July 27 to Aug. 11 . Canada’s first game of the tournament will be on July 29 at 8:15 a.m. against host France.

“I am very excited for the upcoming competition this summer and once again blessed with the opportunity to wear Canada across my chest because there truly is no feeling like it,” Ejim said.