Inga Freidenfelds was born in Rīga, Latvia in 1935. He learned to play basketball while he was in a displaced persons camp in Europe after the end of World War II. In 1950, when Freidenfelds was 15, he immigrated to Australia. Four years later, he made his senior début for South Australia. In 1955, Freidenfelds played in the Australian Championships, where he was selected to represent Australia at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He was the captain of the team in Melbourne and, at the age of 21, was the youngest person to captain the Australian basketball team at the Olympics. During the 1950s, Freidenfelds was named as the South Australian Basketballer of the Year, before he retired from the sport in the mid-1960s. In 2007, he was inducted into Basketball Australia’s Hall of Fame.
Australia