Australia Day 2018 honours list: Posthumous honour for athletics legend Betty Cuthbert
BETTY Cuthbert, Australian sport’s golden girl from Sydney’s west, is among those honoured for inspiration and achievement today.
NSW
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SHE was Australia’s golden girl lauded by Cathy Freeman as an “inspiration” and now Betty Cuthbert is at the top of the podium again.
The Western Sydney athletics great, who died last year, has been awarded a posthumous accolade in Australia Day 2018 Honours List for her service to the sport at a national and international level.
Cuthbert’s Companion of the Order of Australia is richly deserved. Her contribution to Australian athletics was so great that Freeman said on learning of her death: “Betty is an inspiration and her story will continue to inspire Australian athletes for generations to come.
“I’m so happy I got to meet such a tremendous and gracious role model and Olympic champion.”
Born in 1938 in Merrylands, she first sprinted into the nation’s hearts as a modest 18-year-old at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, where she set an Olympic record in the 100m and a world record in the 200m to win both events. The teenager secured a third gold medal running the final leg in the 4x100m relay, again in a world record time.
In Melbourne Cuthbert won every sprint medal available to women and was the first Australian to win three wins at one Games, earning her the nickname of Australia’s “golden girl”. Injury would rob her of the chance to defend her titles at the 1960 Rome Games but she returned at Tokyo in 1964 to win her fourth gold medal, this time in the 400m. It was the last race of her career.
Cuthbert remains the only athlete in history to win Olympic gold in the 100m, 200m and 400m events. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1965. She was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1994, named an Australian National Treasure in 1998 and entered the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame in 2000.
She was also the first Australian inducted into the International Association of Athletics Federations Hall of Fame when it was founded in 2012, alongside legends such as Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis.
In 1969 she discovered she had multiple sclerosis and would battle the condition for the rest of her life. In 2000, she was one of the final bearers to hand the Olympic torch to Freeman before she lit the flame at the Sydney Games.
Cuthbert died at the age of 79 on August 6 last year, with AOC president John Coates calling her a “national heroine”.
ELLIS HOLDS COURT ON GOAL FOR LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
NETBALL great Liz Ellis cannot wait for the day when we stop distinguishing between the sexes on the sporting field.
“I hope in the next decade we stop talking about women’s sport and just talk about sport,” Ellis, Australia’s most capped international netballer, said.
The 45-year-old said her recognition as an officer in the Order of Australia “came out of the blue”.
“It’s pretty exciting,” she said. “I feel very humbled and very grateful because I really do what I love and I feel very much as though I don’t deserve it when you see all the people out there doing wonderful work.”
Ellis, who lives in the Byron Bay hinterland with husband Matthew and children Evelyn, 6, and Austin, 20 months, was captain of the Sydney Swifts and the national team during her glittering 18-year career.
“My life revolves around my passion, it’s pretty weird to be awarded for doing what you love,” she said.
However, Ellis said the accolade was one, not just for her, but for netball as a whole.
“Really I see it as a recognition of just how far the sport has come,” she said. “I like to think I have played a small part in that.
“Twenty-five years ago you couldn’t have imagined that we would be on prime time TV on a Saturday night.”
CONSTANCE REMINDER OF BRAVERY
SAMUEL Johnson has already dedicated his Australia of the Year nomination to her and his late sister Constance Johnson has been honoured in her own right with a Medal of the Order of Australia.
On the day before she died five months ago, Ms Johnson learnt she had been handed the accolade for her unerring work in raising awareness of breast cancer.
Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove visited the 40-year-old mother-of-two, better known as Connie, and presented her with the award in her hospice bed.
Sir Peter described Ms Johnson, who fought a long, hard battle with breast cancer, as “a determined, inspirational figure and a great Australian”.
Speaking from the Australian of the Year awards yesterday, her brother said he would not have been recognised if it wasn’t for his sister.
“My sister set me a very clear task, and that was to remind every single young mum and woman to be breast aware,” the actor said. “There are new mums popping up every day, my work will never finish. I stand here on behalf of my sister Connie. Nobody nominated today is here solely for what they’ve done, every nominee is very well supported by great teams around them. I’ve lost one half of my team, and I’m just adapting to trying to get it done without her.”
PORT ARTHUR HEARTBREAK INSPIRATION FOR CRUSADER
It was always going to be tough — but Walter Mikac has no regrets about the decision he made 20 years ago in honour of his wife and two daughters.
His life changed forever on April 28, 1996, when his wife Nanette and daughters Alannah, 6, and Madeline, 3, were murdered in the Port Arthur massacre. His heartbreaking loss became the public face of mass shock, outrage and grief.
Mr Mikac didn’t want the memory of his family to be lost, but he also didn’t want the constant reminder of the tragedy. In 1997 he began the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, which has gone on to help tens of thousands of children who have experienced or witnessed serious violence and cyber bullying.
Now he has been recognised for his crusading work.
“I had to pinch myself — it’s all come from an event that I didn’t choose so there’s a bittersweet irony about it,” Mr Mikac said after being made a Member of the Order of Australia for “significant services to the community” as an advocate for gun control and the protection of children through social welfare programs.
He said he was reminded only last week of the events of 1996 during a visit with his parents in Melbourne when he found a copy of the Herald Sun dated May 11 announcing the national gun laws.
“The biggest consolation out of an event you never want to happen ... you have had two major things — the gun laws and 20 years later we have not had another mass shooting,” Mr Mikac said.
CHAMPION OF THE OPPRESSED
WORLD-LEADING human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC has been named an Officer in the general division of the Order of Australia.
Mr Robertson, 71, was recognised for his legal work and advocacy defending human rights and global civil liberties.
A prolific writer, author and presenter of the TV series Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals, he has been specifically recognised for founding and heading up Doughty Street Chambers in London, now the largest human rights practice in the world, with 31 QCs and 110 barristers.
“It’s an honour,’’ he said.
“I’ll wear it to show that I may be an expatriate but not an ex-patriot.”
70s STAR A CHARITY ACE
JAN Stephenson’s many accolades include some of golf’s highest honours, but receiving the Order of Australia is “probably the most important”.
The winner of 40 tournaments was a 1970s superstar due to the racy photo shoots that saw her crowned sport’s sexiest woman in the 1970s.
Ms Stephenson’s main focus now is her Crossroads Foundation, which supports military vets and wounded first responders.
“There is nothing that brings me greater joy than introducing them to golf and seeing what a difference it makes to their lives,” Ms Stephenson, 66, said.
“It means so much to me. I have always been so proud to be an Aussie.”
WHAT A WONDERFUL LIFE
THE woman behind NSW’s comprehensive cancer hospital is being recognised with an Order of Australia for turning personal tragedy into public benefit “through research and treatment programs”.
Following the death of her husband from brain cancer, Gail O’Brien continued his vision for what is today’s Chris O’Brien Lifehouse.
Gail is director of the board and patient advocate the facility. By working to ensure the lessons from the illness and death of her husband are translated into wider cancer care, she has demonstrated an unwavering commitment
to improving the lives of people with cancer and patients in general.
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