Personal information | ||||||||||||||
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Nationality | Australia | |||||||||||||
Born | 24 February 1992 | |||||||||||||
Medal record
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Tahlia Rotumah (born 24 February 1992) is the first female Indigenous Australian Paralympian, of the Minjungbal nation, and is also a South Sea Islander. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Rotumah was born with hemiplegia and cerebral palsy. In 2001 Tahlia Rotumah received an Encouragement award for Junior Sporting Achievements at the Many Rivers Regional Council NAIDOC Week Community Achievement Awards. [5]
Rotumah won silver medals in the 100m and 200m sprints at the 2006 Far East and South Pacific Games (FESPIC) held in Kuala Lumpur. At the age of 16, she competed in athletics at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, where she shaved one-tenth of a second off her personal best in the 100m, but didn't qualify for the finals in either of the 100m or 200m events that she competed in. [6]
Rotumah was nominated for the 2008 Deadlys award "Most Promising New Talent in Sport", [7] [8] and was awarded 'Miss NAIDOC' in 2010. [9]
Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman is an Aboriginal Australian former sprinter, who specialised in the 400 metres event. Her personal best of 48.63 seconds currently ranks her as the ninth-fastest woman of all time, set while finishing second to Marie-José Pérec's number-four time at the 1996 Olympics. She became the Olympic champion for the women's 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics, at which she lit the Olympic Flame.
Deshabandu Kameradin Susanthika Jayasinghe is a Sri Lankan retired sprinter, who specialised in the 100 and 200 metres. She won the Olympic silver medal for the 200m event in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, the second Sri Lankan to win an Olympic medal after Duncan White and the first Asian woman to win an Olympic or World Championship medal in a sprint event. She is also the only Asian athlete to have claimed an Olympic medal in sprint events. She is also the first and only Sri Lankan to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships. Her silver medal achievement at the 2000 Sydney Olympics also stood as the only Olympic medal for a South Asian in athletics event for 21 years before Neeraj Chopra's gold medal achievement at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She is fondly nicknamed as the Asian Black Mare. She has represented Sri Lanka at the Olympics on three occasions in 1996, 2000 and 2008. She is considered one of the most decorated sprinters in Sri Lanka. However, she is also a deemed as a controversial figure in Sri Lanka.
Natalie Anne Coughlin Hall is an American former competition swimmer and twelve-time Olympic medalist. While attending the University of California, Berkeley, she became the first woman ever to swim the 100-meter backstroke in less than one minute—ten days before her 20th birthday in 2002. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, she became the first U.S. female athlete in modern Olympic history to win six medals in one Olympiad, and the first woman ever to win a 100-meter backstroke gold in two consecutive Olympics. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, she earned a bronze medal in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
Allyson Michelle Felix is a retired American track and field athlete who competed in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 meters. She specialized in the 200 meters from 2003 to 2013, then gradually shifted to the 400 meters later in her career. At 200 meters, Felix is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2005–2009), a two-time Olympic silver medalist, and the 2011 world bronze medalist. At 400 meters, she is the 2015 world champion, 2011 world silver medalist, 2016 Olympic silver medalist, 2017 world bronze medalist, and 2020 Olympic bronze medalist. Across the short distances, Felix is a ten-time U.S. national champion.
Natalie du Toit OIG MBE is a South African swimmer. She is best known for the gold medals she won at the 2004 Paralympic Games as well as the Commonwealth Games. She was one of two Paralympians to compete at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; the other being table tennis player Natalia Partyka. Du Toit became the third amputee ever to qualify for the Olympics, where she placed 16th in the 10km swim.
Patricia June O'Shane is a retired Australian teacher, barrister, public servant, jurist, and Aboriginal activist. She was Australia's first Aboriginal magistrate, serving the Local Court in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia between 1986 until her retirement in 2013.
Stephen George Page is an Australian choreographer, film director and former dancer. He is the current artistic director of the Bangarra Dance Theatre, an Indigenous Australian dance company. Page is descended from the Nunukul people and the Munaldjali of the Yugambeh people from southeast Queensland, Australia.
Andrea Melissa Blackett is a Barbadian athlete who specializes in the 400 metres hurdles. She is also a women's track assistant coach at her alma mater, Rice University.
The Koori Mail is an Australian newspaper written and owned by Indigenous Australians since 1991. It is published fortnightly in printed form and electronic copies are available. Owned by five community-based Aboriginal organisations based in Lismore, in northern New South Wales, its profits are spent on community projects and needs. "Koori" is a demonym for the Aboriginal peoples of parts of New South Wales and Victoria.
Anita Marianne Heiss is an Aboriginal Australian author, poet, cultural activist and social commentator. She is an advocate for Indigenous Australian literature and literacy, through her writing for adults and children and her membership of boards and committees.
Rebecca Soni is an American former competition swimmer and breaststroke specialist who is a six-time Olympic medalist. She is a former world record-holder in the 100-meter breaststroke and the 200-meter breaststroke, and is the first woman to swim the 200-meter breaststroke in under 2 minutes 20 seconds. As a member of the U.S. national team, she held the world record in the 4×100-meter medley relay from 2012 to 2017.
Theresa Goh Rui SiBBM is a Singaporean swimmer and Paralympic medalist, with a bronze at the SB4 100m breaststroke at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. She holds the world records for the SB4 50 metres and 200 metres breaststroke events.
The Last Kinection is an Indigenous hip-hop group from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The band was formed in 2006 by Joel Wenitong, DJ Jay Tee and Naomi Wenitong (Shakaya). The Last Kinection first came to attention with its reworking of the Peter Allen song, "I Still Call Australia Home".
Katinka Hosszú is a Hungarian competitive swimmer specialized in individual medley events. She is a three-time Olympic champion and a nine-time long-course world champion. She is owner of a Budapest based swim school and swim club called Iron Swim Budapest, and co-owner and captain of Team Iron, founding member of the International Swimming League.
Angela Ballard is an Australian Paralympic athlete who competes in T53 wheelchair sprint events. She became a paraplegic at age 7 due to a car accident.
Alicia Aberley is an Australian swimmer with an intellectual disability. She represented Australia at the 2000 Summer Paralympics, where she won several medals, and is a multiple world record holder.
Teigan Van Roosmalen is an Australian Paralympic S13 swimmer. She has Usher Syndrome type 1 legally blind and Profoundly deaf. She had a swimming scholarship from the Australian Institute of Sport 2009-2012. Her events are the 100 m breaststroke, 200 m individual medley, 50 m and 100 m freestyle. She competed at the 2011 Para Pan Pacific Championships in Edmonton, where she won a gold medal in the S13 400 freestyle event. She competed at the 2008 Summer and 2012 Summer Paralympics.
The NAIDOC Awards are annual Australian awards conferred on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals during the national celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples known as NAIDOC Week.
Donna Burns OAM is an Australian basketball player with an intellectual disability who won gold as a member of the Pearls in the 1992 Madrid Paralympic Games for Persons with Mental Handicap. Burns is an Indigenous Australian and descendant of the Yorta Yorta.
Elizabeth Maud Hoffman, née Morgan, also known as Aunty Liz or Yarmauk, was an Australian Indigenous rights activist and public servant. She co-founded the first Indigenous Woman's Refuge in Australia, named "The Elizabeth Hoffman House" in her honour. She was one of 250 women included in the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001 and received the inaugural NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.