NSW Champions of Sport – Louise Sauvage OAM

Join us as we celebrate the past winners of the NSW Sports Awards spanning over 20 years of sporting excellence and achievement – as we countdown to the inaugural NSW Champions of Sport, where, for the first time, the induction of new entrants into the NSW Hall of Champions will be combined with the NSW Sports Awards in one gala ceremony. 

In the lead up to the event, we will look back to our past crowned NSW Athlete of the Year and NSW Athlete of the Year with a Disability winners as they share their great joys and triumphs as well as life post their ‘dream year’ with successes both on and off the field.

Sport: Athletics
Events: Wheelchair racing
NSW Athlete of the Year with a Disability: 2000 and 2001

Louise Sauvage became the first athlete to win back-to-back NSW Athlete of the Year with a Disability awards – taking home the prize in both 2000 and 2001.

Louise considered this time to be the prime of her career – largely due to the experience of competing on home soil in the Sydney Olympic Games. In 2000 she competed in both the Paralympic and Olympic Games for the second consecutive time following 1996 in Atlanta.

At the Sydney Olympics Louise won the 800m demonstration race, successfully defending her title from Atlanta four years earlier. At the 2000 Paralympic Games she won gold in the 5,000m and 1,500m, silver in the 800m and had the honour of lighting the cauldron during the opening ceremony.

In 2001 Louise was able to extend upon her achievements at the Olympics and Paralympics in winning the 800m race at the IAAF World Athletics Championship in Edmonton, Canada and the Boston Marathon for the fourth time.

Sauvage’s first international competition in wheelchair racing was at the World Athletics Championships in Assen, Holland in 1990 where she won gold in the 100m, setting a new world record in the process.

In 1992 Louise made her Paralympic Games debut in Barcelona and won four medals in total - three gold in the 100m, 200m and 400m and silver in the 800m. After her performance in Barcelona she was awarded a medal of the Order of Australia.

In 1996 she represented Australia in Atlanta at what was her most successful Paralympics Games, winning four gold medals in the 400m, 800m, 1500m and 5,000m. If those achievement had not been enough in themselves – Louise won the 5,000m and 400m races only an hour apart from each other.

Following her induction into the NSW Hall of Champions Louise said,

“It was a huge honour. After you retire you don’t expect to get accolades and to be alongside some of the greats of NSW sport is a major honour.”

Louise is still involved in the sport as a coach for wheelchair track and road racing at the New South Wales Institute of Sport, which runs the national wheelchair-racing program.

The cream of NSW Sports stars from both past and present will be celebrated at the NSW Champions of Sport Ceremony to be held at Rosehill Gardens on Monday 27 November 2017.

For more information on the NSW Champions of Sport Ceremony and to secure your seat visit: www.sportnsw.com.au/2017ChampionsofSport