WNBL champion Sara Blicavs knew something was wrong with her body. The 188-centimetre basketballer was losing mobility. Much smaller point guards were starting to push her out of the key, and off the court she was unable to pick up her three-year-old nephew. She ploughed on, desperate to attend the 2024 Paris Olympics with the Opals after getting a taste as an emergency substitute on the bronze medal-winning team in Tokyo. The source of her pain was bilateral spinal fractures – cracks coming from both directions that met in the middle of her vertebra. The fractures caused movement that eroded the spinal disc away and left bone scraping on bone. It meant she gave up her Paris dream and underwent a spinal fusion. After more than a year’s rehabilitation, she returns for the Opals on Wednesday night against New Zealand in Adelaide. The 32-year-old said she had been so focused on the Olympics, she had blocked out the pain. Doctors later discovered she had also been playing basketball on a fracture in her tibia for months.