Stephanie Talbot

Stephanie Talbot began playing basketball at primary school and had no idea 16 years later she would be an Olympian.

While it was heart breaking to drop out at the quarter-finals stage of an Olympic Games, like at Rio 2016 after a two-point loss to Serbia, Stephanie had a dream run at FIBA Oceania Championships in open and age groups.

She has two gold medals from the U16s in 2009 and U18s in 2012. Then as a senior player with the Opals she took gold at the 2015 FINA Oceania Championships.

Just before making her Opals debut she helped Australia win bronze at the 2013 U19s World Championships and was drafted by WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, in the 2014 draft.

For the previous four years she had been playing with WNBL’s Adelaide Lightning. She had stints with the University of Canberra Capitals and the Melbourne Boomers before returning to Lightning in 2019.

Stephanie was part of the 2018 FIBA World Championships silver medal-winning squad and shifted up to gold at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in the same year.

During the Rio 2016 Olympic campaign, the Opals rounded out the group stage with a victory over Belarus to move through to the quarter-finals undefeated and set up a clash with Serbia. The match was back and forth the whole way with the Serbians claiming a two-point lead with just 10 seconds to go. The Aussies had the chance to level the match but couldn’t score as the side's run of five straight women’s Olympic basketball medals came to an end.

Stephanie was selected for her second Olympic appearance in Tokyo. Drawn in Group C, Australia lost their opening match to Belgium, then suffered a critical two-point loss in their second game against China, going on to win the last match comfortably against Puerto Rico.

Australia finished third in their group, resulting in a challenging quarter-final match against the USA which they lost 55-79 to end their Olympic campaign in eighth place. America would go on to win the gold medal.

At the 2022 FIBA World Cup in Sydney, Stephanie was pivotal to the Opals taking bronze. The guard posted a near triple-double in the play-off for third against Canada, won 95-65 by Australia. 

Stephanie averaged 8.5 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.3 assists per outing across the competition and was named in the tournament’s All-Star Five.

After stints with the Minnesota Lynx and the Seattle Storm in the WNBA, Stephanie signed a new long-term deal with the Lightning in 2023.

After spending much of 2023 off the court due to an ACL rupture, Stephanie is now fully fit and keen to contribute to the Opals’ Olympic campaign.

The Opals punched their tickets for Paris when they swept through an Olympic qualifying tournament in Belem, Brazil, in early 2024, with wins over Germany, Serbia and the host country.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Stephanie 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.

Stephanie carried an injury into the tournament and played every game in France while managing pain, but was still a key piece to see Australia to bronze. In the bronze medal match she made the biggest play of the game, a block on a Belgium three-point attempt that could have tied the game with 25 seconds to go.