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SPACE issues necessitated News Corp trimming my story on RACHAEL SPORN being honoured with an OAM on Australia Day so here's the unedited version.

RACHAEL Sporn felt a a sense of deja vu when she opened the envelope containing details of her OAM.

“It was a bit like opening exam results,” the triple-Olympian and 15-year veteran of international basketball for Australia said.

“The first time I was selected for Australia, the news came in a letter so it was a bit surreal to revisit that too.”

Sporn, 46, is the only player from the Adelaide Lightning to have had her uniform number (14) retired by the Women’s National Basketball League club, having retired herself after the 2003-04 season.

The shy teenager who ventured to Adelaide from Murrayville in country Victoria hoping for some measure of sporting success never suspected she would be inducted into the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame in 2007.

Or to twice be inducted into the South Australian Sporting Hall of Fame, initially as a member of the Lightning’s superb triple champion 1994-95-96 team, then again as an individual.

But Sporn does not see her OAM as an individual honour.

“I feel this recognises the group around me who have helped and supported me along the way,” she said.

“It’s for my mum, getting me started in basketball.

“It’s for my husband Maurie and his support, and for my children.

“It’s not something I’ve achieved or could ever have achieved alone. It is for all the support I have had along the journey.”

Sporn said she always treated representing Australia as a privilege and an honour, her 304 games as an Opals standard-bearer second all-time.

She left basketball as a triple Olympic medallist, three-time world championship selection, the winner of five WNBL championships, two MVP awards, seven All Star selections and as the league’s games-played record-holder and all-time leader also in scoring and rebounding.

“When you retire and you continue to receive accolades, it is pretty amazing,” she said.

Pretty amazing.

No two words could better describe this new OAM recipient.