By Troy Brown
With the 2024 Olympic games happening at the moment, we thought this would be a good time to reflect on the contribution of Australia’s Indigenous athletes.
Throughout the years our people have competed and even won medals for our country.
Australia has been represented by 60 Australian Olympians that identified as Indigenous – 59 Indigenous athletes at the Summer Olympic Games, and 1 in the Winter Olympic Games.
To date, 14 athletes who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander have competed in the Paralympics.
There are 11 First Nations Australian athletes in the current Olympic team competing in Paris.
I’m sure you have heard of famous names such as Cathy Freeman (pictured above, centre), who was the first Indigenous individual gold medallist; Nova Peris, who became the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic gold medal, and basketballer Patty Mills.
But did you know, basketballer Michael Ah Matt and boxers Adrian Blair and Francis Roberts became the first Indigenous Australians to call themselves Olympians when they competed at the 1964 Tokyo Games?
Kevin Coombs (Wotjobaluk) was Australia’s first Indigenous Paralympian. Kevin (pictured above, right), was selected for the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960.
He also went on to captain the basketball team at the 1972 Paralympics in Germany.
Our people hold a history of greatness in not only the Olympics but athletics in general.
Yorta Yorta man Bobby McDonald (pictured above, left) is credited with inventing what we now know as the ‘crouch start,’ was back in the 1880s.
McDonald initially developed this ‘sitting style’ to counter the cold and the strong winds while awaiting the starter’s gun.
“I first got the idea of the sitting style of start (as I always called it) to dodge the strong winds, which made me feel cold and miserable while waiting for the starter to send us away,” McDonald said in 1913. “One day while sitting down, almost, the starter sent us away, and I found that I could get off the mark much quicker than ever I could standing, and afterwards I always used the sitting or crouch start. I never saw anyone using what is known as the crouch start before I did.”
He forever revolutionised running for good.
In 1883, Bobby Kinnear, a member of the Yurra Yurra tribe, won the prestigious Stawell Gift, the richest and most famous of all the gift races.
He was one of four Indigenous athletes to win at Stawell.
Other indigenous winners were Tom Dancey in 1910, Lynch Cooper (1928) and Josh Ross (2003 and 2005).
According to the National Indigenous Times, here’s the eleven First Nations athletes competing in this Olympics are competing this year are:
- Calab Law (Wakka Wakka): 200m sprint, 4x100m relay
- Abbey Connor: 200m butterfly (at 19, she is the youngest Indigenous competitor this year).
- Maurice Longbottom (Dharawal) Rugby 7s.
- Brooke Peris (Ngarrawanji) Field Hockey.
- Mariah Williams (Wiradjuri) Field Hockey.
- Taliqua Clancy (Wulli Wulli and Goreng Goreng) Beach Volleyball.
- Patty Mills Basketball (Kokatha, Naghiralgal and Duaureb-Meriam).
- Alex Brook “Ally” Wilson (Ngarrindjeri) 3×3 Basketball.
- Marissa Williamson Pohlman (Ngarrindjeri) Boxing: 66kg.
- Callum Peters Boxing: 80kg.
- Conor Nicholas (Whadjuk) Sailing: Mixed 470.