Sport Australia Hall of Fame 2020: See the full list of inductees
Australia’s women’s T20 cricket team has been recognised for its 2020 World Cup win, alongside seven new Hall of Fame inductees. SEE THE LIST
Australia’s World Cup champion women’s cricketers have won ‘The Don’ award in an achievement Bradman might have eerily prophesied.
In the final media columns he penned late in his life, Bradman wrote of the need for cricket to react to the changing tempos and themes of society and there is no better example of that message being lived out than the extraordinary scenes at the MCG on March 8 when 86,174 fans attended a women’s final.
Meg Lanning’s team was presented ‘The Don’ award at Friday night’s Sport Australia Hall of Fame function, as the sporting outfit which has most inspired the nation.
It’s fitting recognition.
The Australian team was front and back page news across the country for the duration of the World Cup, with the nation engrossed by the drama of the favourites almost crashing out of the tournament early, the heartbreak of Ellyse Perry getting injured on the eve of the final, right through to the ultimate triumph of claiming the trophy on the biggest stage.
A few weeks ago, the side was voted Australia’s No. 1 team for having an emotional connection with the people, and the real power of Lanning’s team is in the ever-growing numbers for female participation, which has grown to 76,400 at an increase of 11.4 per cent, according to cricket’s latest census.
Lanning says while the team’s goal was to win the World Cup, the mantra was to inspire the nation – and that’s why ‘The Don’ award is so special.
“Absolutely, that was the aim from the start. When they announced the final was going to be at the MCG and they wanted 90,000 people, the idea behind it was to try and inspire as many people around the country and the world to take up cricket and to see what was possible,” Lanning told News Corp.
“To be recognised for being able to achieve that is really special and something you don’t think about when you’re out there playing. But afterwards, when we saw the faces, especially of the young people in the crowd, who had such a good time, to think we had a hand in inspiring them to want to take up the sport is the really cool thing about it.”
One of the 86,174 on hand at the MCG, was Bradman’s granddaughter, Greta Bradman, who was moved by the experience.
“I was there when the team won the T20 World Cup and it was an emotional day,” she said.
“My grandfather would be so proud of where cricket is today and would be thrilled to know that the whole team is being awarded The Don Award.”
The Australian women’s side is the first-ever team to take out ‘The Don’ award since its inception in 1998 and they join Mark Taylor, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as the other cricketers to have been recognised.
John Bradman, son of The Don, addressed the entire Australian team back in October to personally award them with the gong named in his father’s honour.
“It was quite a nice, special presentation (from John) … it was a very special night the 8th of March and a lot of people put a lot of time and effort into making it an amazing event and we’re just lucky to have been a part of it,” said Lanning.
“That was really the messaging from John. What a great moment it was and hopefully a sign of things to come.”
Lanning admits the fact organisers had been pumping up the bid for a 90,000 crowd for more than 12 months, and the reality Australia would have to make the final for that to be achieved, did create enormous pressure which the team had to fight to manage.
“There’s no doubt that we felt it and we spoke about it as a group heading in that a lot of the talk was about the final … and we had to get the balance right because you obviously want to embrace it and dream big, but you know there’s so much to happen before you get to that point,” said Lanning.
“Leading into the first match we probably didn’t handle it that well … but hallway through the tournament we really clicked back into gear and really focused on playing as a team.
“It was some really challenging times to try and say the right thing and get the messaging across to the team as well.”
MORE HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
LAUREN JACKSON
Lauren Jackson climbed the basketball mountain to become Australia’s finest female player but it’s only now in retirement that she fully appreciates the heights she reached during her stellar career.
Jackson concedes she was too hard on herself during her playing days, often letting the pressure to perform overtake the joyous moments.
Even now as a doting mother of two and a dedicated professional working for Basketball Australia, she often forgets about her decorated basketball career.
It’s only when accolades like induction into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame come up that Jackson allows herself to truly reflect, and appreciate, her achievements in the WNBL, WNBA, Europe and on the international stage for Australia.
“My career feels like a lifetime ago now,” Jackson said frankly.
“The idea of me not having children and a full-time job – it seems like I had another life.
“But when I have to sit back and reflect on my career, what I was able to achieve being an Australian female athlete was remarkable.
“The longer that period goes by, the more it does feel like a dream, especially my achievements over in America and with the Australian team.
“I know when I was an athlete, I wish I would have appreciated it more.
“Now looking back, I think I was a bit hard on myself.
“Oh, I mean, I must have been pretty good you know.”
In many people’s minds, Jackson is the greatest Australian basketballer of all-time.
Better than Andrew Bogut, Andrew Gaze and the future King, Ben Simmons.
It seems like a big call to make, but the stats don’t lie.
Two WNBA championships with Seattle, three WNBA MVPS, four WNBL MVPS while she collected two golds, three bronze and three silvers for the Opals.
It’s a personal tally that firmly places the girl from Albury in the record books as one of the greatest Australian basketballers.
A humble Jackson says it is a privilege to be named in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame alongside her sporting idols like Australian swimming legend, Dawn Fraser.
“The Sport Australia Hall of Fame is very prestigious,” she said.
“It really is the best athletes in Australia, so you are among a group of remarkable human beings who have achieved so much in sport.
“I guess I was just really lucky to achieve what I did, and it is a huge honour to be a part of the Hall of Fame with people that I idolise like Dawn Fraser and Louise Sauvage.
“To be recognised is a massive honour.
“Retirement brings these types of awards and achievements, which I guess is just further confirmation for what I was able to achieve.
“They are incredible women, so to be recognised alongside them and become a member of the Hall of Fame is very exciting.”
Jackson has been retired from basketball for four years, but she is continuing to give back to the game that gave her so much.
The legendary Australian is helping the WNBL make giant strides forward through her Head of Women’s Basketball job.
Jackson played a major role in the set-up of the league’s North Queensland hub during the coronavirus pandemic while she pushed for the competition’s first Collective Bargaining Agreement in 41 years.
“It has definitely been an evolution for me with basketball,” she said.
“The sport has been my life. I grew up as the daughter of two Australian players and then wanted to follow in their footsteps, so I feel like basketball was in my blood for sure.
“My journey as an athlete, into an older elite athlete and then into administration has given me a broad perspective on basketball in Australia and globally.
“Now I’m in a position where I can play a part in pushing the sport forward in my role with Basketball Australia, which is exciting.
“Like everything, it comes with its challenges, but it is so rewarding to still be involved in the sport that has been my life and my passion – it is really incredible.”
MATTHEW MITCHAM
Matthew Mitcham was so caught off guard by his induction into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame that he thought he was in trouble when John Bertrand called to tell him the good news.
Despite his many diving achievements, the 2008 Olympic Games 10-metre platform gold medallist said his Hall of Fame status “came out of nowhere”.
Mitcham, who also won Commonwealth Games gold in 2010, along with six sliver medals, said the call from Bertrand, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman, left him “completely flabbergasted”.
“It was like ‘Am I in trouble?’. It was unexpected, out of the blue and a very nice surprise,” Mitcham said.
“You get really used to accolades during sport but after you retire you expect that you won’t get any again.
“This is not just another accolade, this is a super special thing that’s got a lot of prestige that recognises you as the best among the best.
“It’s humbling. I feel incredibly honoured and pretty chuffed about it.”
Mitcham remains the holder of the highest single dive score in Olympic history, a 112.10 effort in Beijing 12 years ago for his spectacular two-and-a-half somersault with two-and-a-half twist pike.
“That’s something I’m hugely proud of,” he said.
But Mitcham said being the first openly gay Olympic gold medallist remained his proudest achievement.
“Other Olympic gold medallists have come out after they’ve won their gold medals or after they’ve retired, but me coming out before Beijing (in 2008) and competing as an openly gay man and then winning my Olympic gold medal … I’m the first openly gay Olympic gold medallist,” he said.
“That’s the thing that I’m proudest of and I’ll have that always.”
Mitcham also claimed and a world championship bronze medal during a stellar career that ended in 2016 when he retired at the age of 28.
“It was definitely a hugely tough decision, not because I felt like I had unfinished business because that definitely wasn’t it,” he said.
“It was executing that decision that was difficult. There was fear of the unknown, there was a whole identity crisis wrapped up in that, there was fear of what was next.
“I’m very comfortable with the decision. I’ve not looked back once. I’m a normal person now.”
That normality includes a daily job in sales, but Mitcham still gives back to sport by producing and hosting an Australian Institute of Sport podcast on the “mental side of peak performance”, and facilitating panels with other Olympic gold medallists to mentally prepare athletes heading to next year’s Tokyo Games.
“Now that I’ve retired, this is the stage you give back because when I was going through sport and campaigning, so many athletes gave their time and knowledge freely to help me on my journey,” he said.
“Part of the life cycle of being an elite athlete is giving back when you’re done.”
MICHELLE DEN DEKKER
Former Australian captain Michelle den Dekker considered herself lucky to have played in a “really privileged era of netball”.
And now the champion defender has been recognised for her significant part in it after being inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
Having grown up in the Murray River town of Wongulla with an initial foray into sport as a barefoot water skiing champion, den Dekker went on to play 84 netball Tests for Australia in the 1980s and 90s.
Den Dekker made her debut in 1985 and captained Australia in 71 Tests between 1988 and 1995.
The South Australian defender boasted an incredible winning percentage as captain of 92 per cent, leading her team to victory in 65 of her 71 games as skipper.
Den Dekker won two netball world championships as captain, in 1991 in Sydney and 1995 in Birmingham.
“To stay in the Australian team for over a ten-year period and still I think the longest-reigning netball captain with a high success rate, it’s something that was really special,” Den Dekker said.
“I was very fortunate it was a very successful time in Australian netball with Vicki Wilson, Rose Jencke and Liz Ellis.
“It was a really privileged era of netball.”
Den Dekker considered Australia’s 1991 world championship one-goal win against arch rival New Zealand in Sydney as her career highlight.
And it was a moment which she felt elevated her own career – and the game of netball in Australia to a new level.
“For that to be moved out of a general stadium which held 5000-6000 because of ticket numbers and being held in the Sydney Entertainment Centre right in the heart of Sydney with 11,000 people, Bob Hawke Prime Minister at the time sitting courtside, I think that was the highlight,” den Dekker said.
“Not only the build-up to that but the game itself to win by one goal over our arch rivals New Zealand.
“But also what came from that, no longer were we seen as amateur athletes.
“For me personally sponsorship began to fly through the door. Our earnings, or mine in particular as captain, started to really increase and also just the public entity that you became really acknowledged that we had made huge head-roads.
“The 1991 game was really the catalyst for moving netball out of that old tradition of females playing netball in the park, on a bitumen court.
“It moved us into ‘Wow there is a female sport here that is not only exciting, the women are really athletic’. People were looking at us as athletes and we were drawing crowds … it was a time of change.
“I was really fortunate that I was right in the midst of that.”
After her playing career, den Dekker moved into coaching and was an assistant coach with the Diamonds, coach of the Adelaide Thunderbirds and is now an assistant coach with the Australian under-21 team and defensive coach with the under-17 and under-19 teams.
The 54-year-old said she was honoured to have her career recognised in the SAHOF.
“I am really humbled to be included that class of sports men and women who have been acknowledged,” Den Dekker said.
“In that way it is very special because it is leaving a legacy of my name in the sport.
“I really just love netball, it has been a passion for me.”
BRIDGETTE IRELAND
Bridgette Ireland has no regrets about retiring from water polo at the age of just 27 after captaining the Australian women’s team to Olympic Games gold in 2000.
Ireland (nee Gusterson) said there was no better way to leave the sport following the euphoria of Sydney 20 years ago.
“Absolutely, to go out on top was perfect,” Ireland said.
“Winning a gold medal was a journey I had set myself when I was 10 years old and I’d completed that.
“I felt very fulfilled as an athlete and as a person, and I just felt it was the best thing to do.
“I always thought if I wanted to come back I could, but I never did. I had my son the next year, and I just moved on with my life.”
Having not played for two decades, Ireland felt extremely privileged to be inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
“It’s a massive honour, especially so many years after finishing my sport and the journey,” she said.
“It’s lovely to be recognised and to be part of such an esteemed group with some incredible athletes. To be part of that group is really amazing.”
Ireland debuted for Australia in 1992, scoring more than 400 goals in 212 international matches.
Apart from the Olympics, she also represented Australia at four World Cups and in two world championship campaigns.
“I really do appreciate everything we as a team achieved, and appreciate the relationships we developed, and the experiences we were able to have together as a group,” she said.
Ireland was also awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2001 for services to sport, and was inducted into the Water Polo Australia Hall of Fame in 2010 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame, as a water polo player, in 2017.
Now based on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Perth-born Ireland remains involved with sport as a parent and inspiration to her son, aspiring 19-year-old swimmer Kalani Ireland.
“He’s an age-group swimmer that’s trying to forge his way into the open side, so he’s got a lot of development and a lot of work to do,” said Ireland, whose husband is surf lifesaving great Gary Ireland.
“We are very invested in Kalani, and our family as a group, and giving Kalani every bit of support we can, and helping Kalani to develop as a person and an athlete in his chosen field. That’s our massive focus now.”
DAVID FOSTER
Tasmanian axeman David Foster has been inducted into the Australian Sporting Hall of Fame during a live-telecast, COVID-safe event.
Foster, a 186-time world champion, found out about the honour earlier this week via a phone call from Hall of Fame chair and champion yachtsman John Bertrand.
“To be recognised as one of Australia’s greats is quite humbling, because I am a humble person believe it or not,” Foster said.
“I’m very, very proud.
“I’ve been very lucky to have won more world titles than anybody else.
“It just proves that no matter where you live in Tasmania or what background you come from you can achieve your dreams and your ambitions.”
Foster celebrated the occasion over “a few drinks” with close family and friends at home in the State’s North.
“I’m just a normal bloke who’s been very lucky to do extraordinary things,” the 63-year-old said.
“It would have been really lovely to have my mum and dad still alive and my mother and father in law but it is what it is.”
Foster won his first world title with his dad, George.
“As a kid growing up watching your father win world championships and to be able to win a world title with him as my first world championship, that’s really special,” he said.
However, that is not his fondest title.
“I tell people my 184th world title,” he said.
“I won 183 and I ruptured a disk in my back.
“I was told that I would never chop again and then I came back and won three more.
“In my 184th, I just know how hard I really worked to win another title.
“All the medical people said I’d never do it again. I know how much that meant to me.”
He said he hoped the honour would see others from his sport recognised.
His advice to anyone chasing their dreams was to back themselves no matter the odds.
“Enjoy the journey and believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself it won’t come true,” he said.
“The only time I was picked first at school was to be the anchor man in the tug of war – there’s no way known you could have imagined 186 world titles or to be the only athlete in the world to win 21 world championships straight … it’s been just unbelievable.”
CADEL EVANS
Cadel Evans spent 34 years on a bike preparing for three weeks in July, 2011, when he became the first and only Australian to win the Tour de France.
Now next year will be a decade since he stood on the Champs Elysees in Paris with the Australian flag draped around his shoulders and the yellow jersey on his back.
“That’s 10 years that have passed really quickly,” Evans told News Corp this week.
“I even raced on the road for more than 10 years (after switching from mountain biking) but as everyone knows when you’re having fun the time seems to go faster and I’m still trying to slow it down, and Covid has helped with that.
“But the sport and my results, it gave me so much in travel and life’s lessons, the people I met, it really formed the person I am so to even just have that in the memory bank is fantastic.”
Australia’s greatest ever cyclist has now been formally recognised as one of the nation’s greatest ever athletes by being inducted in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame this week.
“It’s funny in these times and not having my race going on (in Geelong), it’s the furthest I’ve been from the sport in my whole life,” Evans said.
“But on a personal level that my efforts in cycling are recognised on a broader sporting level in the hall of fame is something I’m proud of and a real honour.
“Nearly everything I did was in the northern hemisphere but the fact that Australia was along with me for the ride, watching and following, I always felt like I had a few people behind me giving me a little push along and a pat on the back when I needed it.
“Now years after my career it’s something I look back at with pride.”
The average sports fans might associate Evans with the Tour de France, but the hall of fame induction is recognition of a lifetime in the sport which included other major accomplishments such as standing on the podium in the other two Grand Tours – the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana.
Evans is also the only Australian to win the UCI road world championship (2009), and won major stage races the Tour of Romandie, Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour of Austria, Criterium International and one-day epic La Fleche Wallonne.
He represented Australia in mountain biking in the Sydney 2000 Olympics and won a time trial gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
Evans is also a four-time Oppy Medallist as Australian cyclist of the year.
“Of course I’m known within cycling for what I did and some in mountain biking for what I did there, but I’m known outside of cycling for the Tour de France,” he said.
“I suppose I’m seen in different perspectives but to be recognised for the Tour which not only was it the pinnacle (of my career) but the combination of all the years of experience that came together to bring that result.
“So it was the summary of my whole life’s dedication to the sport brought together in three weeks.”
Evans now lives in Switzerland where he has recently become a father for the third time, but won’t be making his customary trip home to Geelong for the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race which has been cancelled by COVID-19.
But he expects the race to be back bigger and better in 2022 and he can’t wait to be there.
JILL MCINTOSH
In 88 games as coach of the Australian netball team, Jill McIntosh only lost six times.
It was a run of such dominance between 1995 and 2003 that Australia collected two Commonwealth Games gold medals and two world championships without losing a single match in any of those four campaigns.
McIntosh is being inducted in to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame to recognise her contribution to netball which went beyond just coaching.
The West Australian sporting great has been highly influential at every level of the sport, sitting on coaching committees and advisory panels to provide professional development for coaches around the world.
McIntosh drove coaching standards, making it understood that high quality coaching at every level was the best possible foundation for the development of elite athletes.
Her involvement in netball began as a player, starting in primary school.
McIntosh became a fixture in the WA senior team between 1973 and 1986, and in a signal of her future path, the last seven of those seasons was captain-coach.
She also made the Australian team as a player in 1974, going on to play 29 Tests, assuming the captaincy, and was twice named Netballer of the Year.
Coaching and educating remained McIntosh’s driving force, and before taking the reins of the national team, she was head coach at the Western Australian Institute of Sport, Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian under 21 coach and national coaching director.
In 2005 McIntosh was appointed the inaugural chair of the International Netball Federation’s (INF) coaching committee and has continued to lead the way in allowing coaches across the globe to incorporate professional development into their work.
McIntosh was inducted into the Netball Australia Hall of Fame in 2009 and received the International Netball Federation’s service award in 2013.
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