NBA Championship winner Patty Mills will become the first Indigenous Australian to carry the country’s flag at an Olympic Games opening ceremony.
The 32-year-old San Antonio Spurs point guard will be Australia’s flag-bearer at Tokyo 2020 alongside two-time swimming gold medallist Cate Campbell.
Mills said the honour was “a passionate moment I can feel in my bones”.
“As a proud Kokatha, Naghiralgal and Dauareb-Meriam man it’s incredible,” he continued.
Both Mills and Campbell will be competing in the Games for a fourth time.
The announcement Mills would be one the two flag-bearers was accompanied by images of him draped in the Australia flag, posing in front of the Aboriginal flag and that of the Torres Strait.
Mills is both one of his nation’s biggest sport stars and a vocal advocate for social justice – he has donated part of his salary to the Black Lives Matter movement in the country.
Carrying the flag in Tokyo on 23 July will evoke memories of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, when legendary athlete Cathy Freeman became the first Indigenous Australian to light the torch.
‘Inspiring, symbolic, emblematic’
In accepting the honour in Japan, Mills asked: “What does it actually mean to me to be a flag-bearer?
“My answer comes from how this particular person in past years, in this role, has impacted me. It’s leadership, representation and it’s insanely meaningful. It’s inspiring. It’s symbolic. It’s emblematic.
“My honest answer would be, what does it mean to everyone else? What does it mean to the team? What does it mean to everyone in Australia? The thousands of ex-pats living around the world?
“What does it mean to the next generation? The people that have come before us?
“Because those are the people I proudly represent and will carry the flag for. As the first Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander flag bearer my connection between our country – the land, the sky, the sea, our culture, our history and this particular moment runs extremely deep.”
