'We've earned the right to flex': Britt Sykes and the Canberra Capitals rising over adversity

Standing beneath the basket with her fists clenched, clutching her jaw tight, her face locked in a scowl. The flex usually comes after a jaw-dropping block or points off a turnover. It comes when the Canberra Capitals need it most. It sends the crowd into a frenzy.

Canberra's American import Sykes rides every moment, and every night her fierce grimace and tensed muscles let us pry into her soul.

The 27-year-old has no shortage of reasons to beat her chest little more than seven weeks into her first WNBL stint. She has fallen in love with a club that has been to hell and back. They were hit by COVID-19, they lost their coach for a month, they've had games scrapped hours before tip-off.

So when Sykes gets a chance to unleash, she won't hold back.

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"I'm going to be honest. I don't even think about flexing, it's just natural," Sykes said.

"That's because of the energy from the aggression, the passion, and even pain. We don't have to speak on it but there is pain behind some of the things we've gone through.

"When we go out there and we play and I flex, we yell and we celebrate, that's because we've been through so much. We've earned the right to flex, we've earned the right to yell and scream and really show that enthusiasm."

Glance at the Capitals bench and you'll see players standing up with three fingers in the air, waving towels and cheering. But there's one person that won't even break into as much as a smile.

Coach Paul Goriss has some poker face. If this were a Las Vegas casino you'd have no idea which cards he was playing with. Then again, this is a basketball coach who barely cracked a smile until the final buzzer went when his team won a championship.

"On the inside I'm cheering with a big smile," Goriss grinned.

"I'm not going to get involved in the antics, Slim does my job for me. I'm quietly flexing on the sideline. I love her energy and what she brings, and that's what drew us to her straight away when she wanted to come to Australia.

"What we saw in Slim in the WNBA is what she has delivered times 10. Her energy, the way she plays the game, the way she loves playing the game, the way she has fitted into this team, hopefully citizenship papers come soon and we'll have her here for life."

Wouldn't the fans love it. One look at Sykes' highlights before she touched down in Canberra was enough to suggest she would be a crowd favourite.

Sykes sends the love right back, because these Capitals fans, "they ride with us no matter what".

But this weekend they go on the road to face the Adelaide Lightning on Sunday.

Sykes doesn't need a reminder of how their last meeting transpired. Lightning struck in Canberra and the Capitals were left to pick up the pieces. But things are different now.

"Man, I don't think any other team has been through the amount of adversity we have been through," Sykes said.

"I don't think any team knows how much adversity we've been through because we've held it together. Things that could have pulled us apart, we just came together even tighter. It just shows we are a team and our character is strong.

"Nobody can ever have a doubt there is a crack in our ceiling, we break the ceiling and we own who we are. We develop every day. The level of competition we're playing at is proving we're figuring it out, and we're figuring it out at a pace to where we can go and win a championship."

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