High Steaks: Netball legends Liz Ellis and Catherine Cox lead fight for Brisbane 2032 Olympics spot
If surfing, skateboarding and breaking are Olympic-worthy, surely netball is too, argue legends Catherine Cox and Liz Ellis. Watch their High Steaks interview.
The Brisbane 2032 Olympics may be seven years away, but for Liz Ellis and Catherine Cox the return to Australia of the greatest show on Earth may as well be tomorrow.
There is no time to waste for the pair of legendary Australian netballers, fighting to have the sport included when the Games makes its way back to Australia for the third time in 129 years.
Despite being well into respective retirements with families, impressive careers in broadcasting, and positions on the board of Netball Australia, Ellis and Cox are leading calls for their sport’s elevation.
The flicker of hope last year in Paris when skateboarders, surfers and, infamously, breakdancers, took to the world stage revived a decades-old movement.
“You only get a once-in-a-generation opportunity to push for your sport to be at the biggest event in the world,” Ellis said.
“When I watched the Paris Olympics, knowing Brisbane was going to be in 2032, I just got excited because I saw how people embraced the new sports and how the Olympics are evolving.
“I thought: this is our moment.”
Netball has never been included in the Olympics and the Brisbane 2032 instalment is shaping up to be the best – and possibly last – chance for it to secure a Games debut.
For Ellis, the Olympic bid is particularly personal.
The ex-Diamonds captain of four years, whose glittering international career spanned 15 years and who is now the Netball Australia chair, was part of the Channel 7 broadcast team for Sydney 2000.
But Ellis should have been on the court.
“I was rapt to be able to be part of the broadcast team, but I just felt really sad our sport wasn’t there and we missed out,” she said.
“I think people are genuinely surprised that it’s not (in the Olympics). It’s a little anomaly but this is an opportunity to change it.
“Now that I’m in a position where I can, I want to give it absolutely everything that I’ve got.”
Cox, a two-time World Cup winner, who played for Australia between 1997 and 2013, shares a similar hope.
Born in New Zealand, the champion shooter collected a haul of Commonwealth Games medals during her career and captained the country seven times.
Cox blazed a path to the top with her attacking game beside Ellis, who dominated the other end of the court as one of the most formidable defenders on the court.
The pair are lifelong friends, teammates and by the sound of it – over our High Steaks lunch at Felix in Wynyard – partners in mischief during their touring days (but we’ll get to that).
Missing out on the Olympics at the height of their careers is fuelling their fight to make sure the next generation of netballers don’t miss out too.
“It would be the absolute peak for us,” Cox said.
“We had hope way back in 2000 when it was the Sydney Olympics that we may have been a demonstration sport then, and that came and went.
“I feel like the biggest opportunity is a home Olympics, it’d be absolutely incredible.”
When I ask why netball has struggled to get recognition or an invitation to appear on the ultimate sporting stage, the answers are less clear.
“I don’t really know what’s held (netball) back in the past,” Ellis said.
“The obvious one is gender. But what netball can do for the Olympic movement is to really push for parity… we also believe that Olympic inclusion will really supercharge our men’s game as well.”
On paper, netball ticks all the boxes for Olympic qualification. The sport is played across the world, and will have a men’s world cup in 2027. It attracts millions of fans globally.
Australia is also home to the world’s best netball league.
Ellis is close to the action and working with a team on an Olympic submission by late-2026 but tight-lipped when I ask for an insider verdict.
“I’d never say anything about whether it’s in or not,” she said.
“I just want a little girl who’s starting out in a netball journey, or little boy who thinks he might like to go and play, to be able to understand one day they’ll be able to play at the Olympics.
“That’s probably the one thing missing from our sport in terms of that dream.
“It’s almost like a final piece of the jigsaw.”
As the three of us made our way through steak and fries while rain bucketed down on an unusually dreary Sydney day, the duo entertain me with stories from their playing days.
After a series of “shenanigans,” including 4am swims in Barbados, Ellis and Cox reveal they were banned from rooming together on trips away.
“It was that bad,” Cox laughed. “We were never allowed to room with each other until the last (game) because our manager couldn’t deal with us.
“But if it was a World Cup she knew she had to put us together otherwise we’d be relentless.
“So we have this friendship that’s based on humour and this sheepishness, but then it’s overlaid with standing together, watching each other do unbelievable things,” Ellis said.
“I had a front-row seat to one of the greatest goal-shooters Australia’s ever produced and I sort of didn’t know it at the time, because she’s also my bestie, and I was playing cards with her and thinking about stupid things like organising our post-season shenanigans.”
Beneath their public personas, Cox said “Lizzie” was a “big dork” who loves history, while Ellis described the sports commentator as “naughty” and humble with a wicked sense of humour.
“What I love about Catherine is she doesn’t understand how unbelievable she is.
“If I was six foot two and smoking hot like she is, I’d be so full of myself, but she’s not,” Ellis joked.
The lunch was the first time they had seen each other in a month and both became teary-eyed playing back a lifetime of memories – many under the “highest degree of pressure”, including the iconic 2002 Commonwealth Games extra-time buzzer victory, downing the Kiwis 57-55.
Becoming mums and raising their kids has been the next big adventure they have walked together.
Originally published as High Steaks: Netball legends Liz Ellis and Catherine Cox lead fight for Brisbane 2032 Olympics spot
