Topic: Lauren Jackson

Lauren Elizabeth Jackson (born 11 May 1981 in Albury, New South Wales) is an Australian professional basketball player. She is often called LJ or Loz. Beginning her professional career at the AIS, in the WNBL before moving on to the Canberra Capitals, taking a break in 2006 and returning for the 09/10 season. She is a forward/centre with the Seattle Storm of the WNBA, the Australian national team The Opals. She has won national championships in the U.S., Australia, and Russia, and a world championship as well. She is widely considered to be the best Australian female basketball player of all time and one of the best players in the world.

Both Jackson's parents, Gary and Maree, represented Australia in basketball and she took up the game at the age of four. A teenage prodigy at Murray High School, Albury, she moved to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra as a teenager. She played for the Australian women's team, the Opals, in 1997 as a 16-year-old. She led the Australian Institute of Sport team, made up of the country's best 16- to 18 year-old players, to a premiership in the WNBL Women's National Basketball League, the Australian women's professional league, in 1998-1999 - an unprecedented achievement for a youth team. Ineligible to continue with the AIS team, she joined the other Canberra-based team, the Canberra Capitals, and led them to four titles in 1999-2000, 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2005-2006.

In the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, Jackson collected 20 points and 13 rebounds in a loss to the United States in the gold medal game. The silver medal was Australian basketball's first in an international competition.