Louise Sauvage OAM

Louise Sauvage OAM was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as an athlete member for the sport of athletics in 2007 and was elevated to become the 41st official Legend of Australian Sport in October 2019.
Legend status is the highest honour available in Australian sport and in Louise’s case it has extra historical significance because she is the first Para-athlete to achieve it.

She was given the honour of lighting the cauldron at her home Paralympics in Sydney 2000. She carried the flag leading out the Australian team at the Athens games four years later – which were to be her final professional competition.

In a career that began at age 16 at the International Paralympic Committee World Athletics Championships in 1990 until she retired after the Athens Paralympics in 2004, she was a dominant force.

The many highlights include:

• Nine gold and four silver medals from four Paralympic Games. Over her Paralympic career she won gold medals across every distance between 100m and 5000m.
• Two gold and one bronze medal from three appearances in 800m demonstration races at the Olympic Games, including gold at the Sydney Olympics.
• Silver at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, UK in the 800 metres.
• Twelve gold and two silver medals from four IPC World Athletics Championships.
• Five gold medals from five appearances in 800m demonstration races at the IAAF World Championships.
• Numerous victories in the world’s most prestigious road races, including four Boston marathons, three Honolulu marathons, two Berlin marathons plus the Los Angeles, Oita and Sempach marathons, and ten Oz Day 10k titles in Australia’s premier international wheelchair road race.
• During the span of her career, she set world records from 100m to 5000m, her last world record in 2004, just one month before retiring.
• Inducted into the International Paralympic Hall of Fame, inaugural inductee in the Australian Paralympic Hall of Fame, inductee in the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame, elevated to Legend status in the NSW Hall of Champions and an inductee in the Western Australian Hall of Champions.

After retiring from competition, Louise became involved in coaching wheelchair athletes. She is now a well-respected coach with the NSW Institute of Sport, her athletes having achieved Commonwealth Games gold, Paralympic gold, world records and World Championship gold.