Sport is one of Victoria’s great loves. After all, they don’t call us the sporting capital of the world for nothing.

As part of the Herald Sun’s 30th anniversary we have compiled our top 30 athletes from the past 30 years.

From Ben Simmons, who some say could go on to become the best basketball player of his generation, to Cathy Freeman who carried Australia’s hopes on her shoulders in Sydney.

These are the biggest names in sport to have emerged from Victoria over the past three decades.

Do you agree with our selections? Have your say in the comments at the end of this sport special.

CADEL EVANS (CYCLING)

There’s a special place for Australians who are the first to achieve greatness on the global stage, and for now-Victorian cyclist Evans, it happened on the most prestigious of stages. In 2011, the Eltham-raised Evans became the first Australian to win the Tour de France, gliding up the Champs Elysees to glory. His career finished in 2015 with 11 top-10 Grand Tour finishes to his name, and that famed yellow jersey.

CAMERON SMITH (NRL)

The greatest ever. It is that simple when talking about the Melbourne Storm premiership captain and NRL games record holder. Former teammates joke the skipper has the record for records broken and they could be on the money, with Smith the benchmark for wins, points scored and goals among others. The 37-year-old has dominated for club, state and country for the best part of two decades. Queenslanders will always call him a Maroon, but he’s lived in Melbourne for nearly 20 years.

DAMIEN OLIVER (RACING)

Where do we start? At 48, “Ollie” has claimed 116 Group 1 winners — second only in Australia to George Moore (119) — eight Scobie Breasley Medals and won the Victorian jockeys’ premiership 10 times. Oliver’s trophy cabinet includes four Caulfield Cups, three Melbourne Cups, two Cox Plates and a Golden Slipper. In a big race or a close finish, Ollie is the one you want in the saddle.

CRAIG WILLIAMS (RACING)

A consummate professional, Williams would do as much research before the races as today’s epidemiologists. Williams has won 54 Group 1s including the three Spring Carnival majors — the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup. The 42-year-old claimed the past five Victorian riding premierships to take his career tally to nine.

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ANDREW GAZE (BASKETBALL)

Mr Basketball. If only YouTube and Twitter existed when Gaze dominated Australian basketball. The Melbourne Tigers immortal played 22 seasons in the NBL, won two championships, seven most valuable player awards and 14 scoring titles. Gaze holds NBL records for points, assists, field goals and three-pointers. He led the Boomers to five Olympics, which culminated in the Melburnian named Australia’s flag-bearer in the Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony.

CATHY FREEMAN (ATHLETICS)

Twenty years since she produced the greatest moment in Australian sport. No person was under more pressure at the Sydney Olympic Games than Freeman when she delivered a fairytale gold medal in the women’s 400m. Born in Mackay, she has lived in Melbourne since the early ‘90s. She finished her career with Olympic gold and silver medals plus two world 400m titles and four Commonwealth Games gold medals.

MARK VIDUKA (SOCCER)

The powerful striker, who started at the Melbourne Knights in the NSL, went on to become one of the deadliest strikers in the English Premier League. Playing at Leeds United with fellow Australian Harry Kewell, the man known as the “V-Bomber” raised the profile of the EPL in Australia immeasurably in the early 2000s. Captained the Socceroos to the round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup.

MICHAEL KLIM (SWIMMING)

By the time he hung up the goggles, the Victorian was an Olympic gold medallist, a world champion and a former world record holder. Will never be forgotten for his role as the lead-off swimmer in Australia’s 4x100m freestyle relay at the Sydney Games. Klim posted a world record in his swim to give Australia the early lead it needed to beat the Americans on the way to the gold medal.

MICHELLE PAYNE (RACING)

The Ballarat girl will forever be remembered as the first, and currently the only, female jockey to win the prestigious Melbourne Cup in its 155-year history. Her incredible ride on the 100-1 longshot Prince of Penzance was widely celebrated and even inspired a feature film, Ride Like a Girl.

GARY ABLETT SNR (AFL)

Many argue there is no one above “God”. With 1031 goals from 258 games, Ablett’s stats arguably don’t capture what many describe as freakish talent. He was special — plain and simple — and as Herald Sun chief football writer Mark Robinson put it earlier this year, “Was only one of two players in the history of the game who dragged fans through the gates simply because of the anticipation of seeing something special”. Just check out his 1993 season. Pure brilliance.

GARY ABLETT JNR (AFL)

But what about the “Son of God”? The “Little Master”. At his peak, had an ability to win the ball like few others and will retire at the end of this season with two Brownlow Medals — at different clubs — and two premierships with Geelong. The eight-time All-Australian stepped out from his father’s shadow early in his career to cast his own, such was his individual genius with ball in hand.

TONY LOCKETT (AFL)

“There’s only one Tony Lockett”, they’d sing. And it’s true. No other player has kicked more goals in VFL/AFL history than “Plugger’s” 1360 majors from 281 games. And the numbers prove just as imposing as the man himself, a true goliath of the game in every sense.

DYLAN ALCOTT (TENNIS, BASKETBALL)

Not many athletes can claim top honours across two sports. But to that, Alcott simply says, hold my beer. In 2008, Alcott was a member of Australia’s gold-medal winning Paralympics basketball team, before he returned to tennis in 2014. And since then, he’s been unstoppable, winning six Australian Open titles and four other grand slams. A noted wheelchair crowd-surfer at gigs, too, his work with young disabled Australians keeps him busy off the court.

GEOFF OGILVY (GOLF)

Ogilvy grew up at Victoria Golf Club, where he was junior champion, and will always be best remembered for winning the 2006 US Open. The former world No. 3 has recorded eight wins on the US PGA Tour and at home he won the 2008 Australian PGA Championship and the 2010 Australian Open.

MARK BRESCIANO (SOCCER)

The Melbourne-born Bresciano is best remembered for scoring a crucial goal for the Socceroos in the second leg of its 2006 World Cup qualification playoff against Uruguay, a sweet left-foot strike which helped Australia qualify for the first time in 32 years. A classy midfielder, Bresciano played in three World Cups and finished with 84 national caps.

SHARELLE MCMAHON (NETBALL)

The girl from Bamawm would rise through the ranks to play for Australia more than 100 times. She was a part of two world championships (1999, 2011) and won two Commonwealth Games gold medals in 1998 and 2002. She was also the flag bearer for Australia in her fourth Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. She also led the Melbourne Vixens to the 2009 ANZ Championship.

SHANE WARNE (CRICKET)

The spin king and Australia’s best cricketer behind Sir Don Bradman. The leg-spinner from Black Rock rose through the ranks to take 708 Test wickets, a record for any Test bowler until it was broken by Muttiah Muralitharan. Many of those who witnessed Warne collect his 700th wicket at his beloved MCG rate it up there among favourite moments at the great stadium.

KIM BRENNAN (NEE CROW) (ROWING)

The daughter of former Essendon and St Kilda player Max Crow, Brennan started off as a 400 m hurdler and won the silver medal at the 2001 World Youth Championships in Athletics. She then took up rowing. At the 2012 London Olympics, she won a silver medal in the women’s double sculls and a bronze medal in the women’s single sculls. Four years later at the Rio Games, Brennan won the women’s single scull, leading the race from start to finish.

STEVE HOOKER (POLE VAULT)

Renowned for his nerves of steel, Hooker won gold in the pole vault at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the most dramatic circumstances. Twice he cleared clutch jumps on his third attempt in the final before he secured the gold medal on yet another third-attempt clearance. Hooker won the world title the following year in Berlin by again defying the odds, this time competing despite a torn thigh muscle suffered a week before the championships.

ANDREW BOGUT (BASKETBALL)

Inspired a generation of Australians to not only dream about playing in the NBA but seriously aim for it. Bogut created history in 2005 as Australia’s first No. 1 NBA draft pick when taken by the Milwaukee Bucks. Bogut boasts an incredible passing game for a seven-footer and in 2015 helped the Golden State Warriors snap a 40-year championship drought. Bogut remains on track to appear at his fourth Olympics in Tokyo 2021.

MACK HORTON (SWIMMING)

The defending Olympic 400m freestyle champion, Horton created headlines when he refused to shake hands with Chinese swimmer Sun Yang after he finished second to him at the 2019 world championships. His provocative stance against drug cheats — Sun Yang has subsequently been banned for eight years — was applauded by athletes across the globe.

LYDIA LASSILA (AERIAL SKIING)

Competed in an incredible five Winter Olympics. Lassila made her Olympic debut in 2002, suffered a horrible knee injury at her second Games in 2006 before she came back to win the gold medal in the aerials at the 2010 Vancouver Games. She returned four years later after the birth of her first child to claim bronze in Sochi and then at the age of 36 made one final Olympic appearance at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

WAYNE CAREY (AFL)

He’s not nicknamed “The King” for nothing. It’s a toss-up between Carey, Leigh Matthews and Gary Ablett Snr for the game’s greatest-ever player, with the former North Melbourne — and brief Crow — forward’s career spanning 15 years. After 272 games, 727 goals, two premierships and seven All-Australian berths, Carey was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2010.

Carey was born in Wagga Wagga but moved to Victoria when he joined North Melbourne as a teenager. He did his best work here before finishing his career at Adelaide.

MEG LANNING (CRICKET)

One of the greatest female cricketers of all time. Lanning has been a run-scoring machine for nearly 10 years and had the honour of captaining Australia to T20 World Cup glory in front of almost 90,000 at the MCG in February. It was her fourth T20 World Cup win to go with her sole one-day World Cup triumph.

JARED TALLENT (WALKING)

The Ballarat boy is an Olympic gold medallist, winning the 50km walk at the London 2012 Games. It followed the 2008 Beijing Games, in which he took out the silver in the 50km walk and the bronze in the 20km walk. He returned to the Olympics in Rio in 2016, where he took home the silver medal for the 50km walk.

DEAN JONES (CRICKET)

The outpouring of grief that followed Jones’ recent sudden death reflected just how loved and revered the Victorian was. He may have done his best work on the pitch before 1990, but he played for Victoria until 1998 and was adored until the very end. His swashbuckling all-or-nothing attitude won him the devotion of the nation and inspired a generation of young cricketers in the Jones mould.

MARK PHILIPPOUSSIS (TENNIS)

The big-serving Victorian never won a grand slam title but he came mightily close, making the final of both of the US Open in 1998 and Wimbledon in 2003, where he was beaten by fellow Australian Pat Rafter and Roger Federer respectively. He did, however, win the deciding rubbers in two Davis Cup finals for Australia in 1999 and 2003.

STEVE MONEGHETTI (MARATHON)

The kid from Ballarat was originally told at Little Athletics that he wasn’t cut out to be a runner. That kid went on to become one of our greatest long-distance competitors. His first marathon victory was in Berlin in 1990. Moneghetti also won the Tokyo Marathon and a Commonwealth Games gold medal (both in 1994) and competed in four Olympics.

BEN SIMMONS (BASKETBALL)

From Box Hill Senior Secondary College and the Knox Raiders to the NBA, it has been a meteoric rise for global hoops star Ben Simmons. He was born in Melbourne and grew up playing both basketball and Australian rules, where he pulled on the jumper for the Beverley Hills Junior Football Club. He soon decided to focus on hoops and it’s paid off handsomely.

DREW GINN (ROWING)

What a star he was. The Scotch College graduate and Oarsome Foursome member would go on to win gold medals at three Olympics, in 1996, 2004 and 2008. At his fourth Olympics in 2012, Ginn would take out the silver medal in the coxless four. A five-time world champion.

To mark the Herald Sun’s 30th birthday milestone, over 30 days we will celebrate all that makes Victoria and Melbourne great. Our coverage will include the state’s 30 most influential people of the past 30 years, greatest sporting moments, and best photos. To get your special Mark Knight 30th souvenir cartoon visit the Herald Sun Shop online store. Subscribers can also purchase a limited edition print at heraldsun.com.au/rewards

HERALD SUN 30 YEARS