29/09/00
The Girls' Games
Summary:
They were promoted as the Green Games and the Athletes’ Games. They’ve turned out to be the Girls’ Games. More women are participating in the Sydney Olympics than ever before - a long haul since the first modern Olympics banned women from competing.
ANITA TEDDER, co-author of ‘A Proper Spectacle: Women Olympians 1900-1936’, looks back on the early history and controversies surrounding Olympic events for women.
And on this centenary of women in the Olympics, DEBBIE SIMMS, the manager of the Women and Sport Unit of the Australian Sports Commission, discusses what’s driving our perceptions of female athleticism now. And will it make any difference to women’s sport beyond the Olympics?
Plus, Australian sportswomen competing in water polo, beach volleyball, basketball and other Olympic events talk about their own challenges and successes.
Details or Transcript:
THEME
Amanda Smith: Welcome to The Sports Factor’s final program from the International Broadcast Centre here at Olympic Park, Homebush Bay. And it’s an all-girl program today, in celebration of Sydney 2000 being the centenary year of women’s participation in the Olympic Games.
Sydney, the Green Games, the Athletes’ Games, Oceania’s Games. But they’ve also emerged as the Girls’ Games. More women are competing in these Olympic Games than ever before. And many of the outstanding and memorable performances have come from female athletes. As I’m sure you know, the very first modern Olympics, in 1896, banned women from competing. And in a moment, we’ll go back to the early history and controversies that have surrounded female participation in the Olympics. First though, a couple of the memorable moments, so far at these Games, from Australian sportswomen, past and present.
CHEERS AT SYDNEY OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONY
Commentator: Mesdames et Messieurs célébrant cent années de participation des femmes aux Jeux Olympiques, la Flamme Olympique!
Commentator: Ladies and Gentlemen, celebrating 100 years of women’s participation in the Olympic Games, the Olympic Flame, carried by Betty Cuthbert and Raelene Boyle!
CHEERS
Tim Lane: … to run beneath the Olympic Flame as they head towards the straight and Graham is just in front of Freeman, she’s going to have to work! Graham, Merry, Freeman! Freeman gets to the front! Freeman leads by a metre! Graham fighting on! But Freeman is too good! The crowd roaring! Freeman wins Gold! Cathy’s the winner! Australia the winner! Cathy Freeman is a national hero! 49.13 – her Olympic dream is realised!
Peter Hadfield: I don’t think that’s physical tiredness that’s put Cathy to the track, I think the emotion of the four year build-up. She is ready to dissolve into tears, you can see it.
CHEERS
Amanda Smith: Now the good Baron and founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, was utterly opposed to women competing in his Games. De Coubertin’s view was that it would be indecent, vulgar, injurious to health, and masculinising for women to compete. But he didn’t get his way for long, because a small number of events for women were included in the second Olympic Games, held in Paris in 1900. Well, the early history of women Olympians from 1900 to 1936, has just been published. It’s called ‘A Proper Spectacle’, by British authors Stephanie Daniels and Anita Tedder. So if the founder of the Olympic Games had such a set against female athletes, how come women did compete, in only the second of the modern Games? Anita Tedder.
Anita Tedder: Well at the time, the International Olympic Committee didn’t have quite so much say because it was 1900, the time of the Paris Exposition, and so there were lots of other events going on and there’s quite a lot of debate as to which events were in fact Olympic and which were part of the Exhibition. So the IOC didn’t really have very much control.
Amanda Smith: What were the very first Olympic sports that women competed in in 1900?
Anita Tedder: Well if you read most of the sports history books, they’ll say women took part in tennis and golf, but when Steph and I were in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, we were reading a lot of books and looking at old programs and found out in fact that women took part in a lot more events than that, and I think there’s probably still a lot more work to do in that area. But we found a woman who took part in equestrianism, for example, a woman called Elvira Guerra took part for France in the Hacks and Hunters Combined event. That was undoubtedly an Olympic sport in 1900. We found a woman who took part in ballooning, yachting.
Amanda Smith: Excuse me, just go back: ballooning?
Anita Tedder: Ballooning, that’s right. Some people might say, ‘Well was that an Olympic sport or not?’
Amanda Smith: Again because of this confusion between the Paris Exposition and the Olympic Games?
Anita Tedder: That’s right. But the definition of an Olympic sport in 1900 was that it had to be open and not handicap and not motorised. And so, ballooning falls into that category. So there is still a lot of debate about which were and which weren’t. But there were a lot of women at the 1900 Games, and a lot more than we’ve been led to believe.
Amanda Smith: Yachting also?
Anita Tedder: Oh yachting, yes. There was a woman called Helene de Pourtales, who competed with her husband on the boat ‘Lerina’ which was again an Olympic event. They actually won it, and she was part of the crew, along with her husband. And she would be the very first woman Olympic Gold Medallist, although she shared the honour with her husband of course.
Amanda Smith: Why that range of sports though?
Anita Tedder: Well there was lots of things going on, lots of different kinds of events. But at that particular time, certainly there weren’t any athletics for women, and no swimming. So the sort of events that were acceptable for women were things like croquet and tennis, because they wouldn’t sweat and get terribly hot and look unwomanly. So the sort of events were events that ladies could compete in, so they wouldn’t sort of frighten the horses or frighten the people by looking terribly athletic.
Amanda Smith: Well the next breakthrough was the Stockholm Games in 1912 with swimming for ladies on the program, a 100-metres freestyle race, a swimming relay, and also high board diving. And Australia’s first female Olympians and medallists.
Anita Tedder: And what a couple of women they were, Fanny Durack and ‘Mina’ [Wilhelmina] Wylie made their way over to Stockholm on their own, raised the money to get there, because the Australians wouldn’t support them. And yet Fanny at that time was the world record holder, and they made their way out there, and of course once they did so well, all the Aussies got behind them and they were accepted then, but yes, they did so well.
Amanda Smith: First and second in the 100-metres freestyle.
Anita Tedder: Yes. I believe there’s a story about the relay, because they were the only two Aussies; they said they would swim double the length so they could take part in the relay, just the two of them, but in fact they weren’t allowed to do that, but they would have won it!
Amanda Smith: Well the big hurdle really was to get women’s track and field events included in the Olympics, wasn’t it? Tell me about that battle.
Anita Tedder: Well the athletics was particularly frightening. Bearing in mind the times where again, if we go back to how women were expected to be genteel, not sweat, not be too masculine, the thing that frightened everybody was athletics, because there were these women being quite strong and powerful. So the whole ethos was very much against women taking part in athletics. And a woman called Alice Milliat, we owe a great debt to Alice Milliat, a Frenchwoman, who in 1919 founded the FSFI, the Federation Sportive Feminine International.
Amanda Smith: So this was an organisation for women and athletics?
Anita Tedder: Yes, that’s right. And what she actually did was to set up the Women’s World Games in the early 1920s. And they ran into a bit of trouble, because they actually called them ‘Olympics’, and the IOC were not happy about that. But Alice Milliat set up these Games, and of course what happened was they were tremendously successful, which was not what was expected, and that made the men sit up and take notice. And Alice then really pushed for athletics to be part of the program in the Olympic Games.
Amanda Smith: And when did that happen?
Anita Tedder: That happened in 1928, but the program was very, very limited to just five events.
Amanda Smith: Well at those Games of 1928 which were held in Amsterdam, they did include in those few athletics events for women an 800-metres flat race. Now there was huge controversy over this race, wasn’t there?
Anita Tedder: Well the press reported that all these women had collapsed and that it was a terrible thing that the women had all been pathetic and that they’d all collapsed, and it was definitely not an event that women should be doing. But what Steph and I did was we found the footage, because there is archive footage of the race, and found that in fact there is one woman who collapses at the end of the race, and we found that she was little Jeannie Thompson from Canada, and Jeannie was injured at the time, and she was just in pain. But I think a lot of it was about they were looking for an excuse really, and it did threaten so much I think, that women might possibly be able to run long distances.
Amanda Smith: But the whole field in fact did not collapse, it was one woman.
Anita Tedder: Oh, absolutely not. And the archive footage shows this. But if you read the press reports, they give a totally different picture. For example, The Daily Mail in London reported the race, and illustrated ‘the strain on the women athletes, as shown by the faces of these sobbing girls’ and what we found was they had a picture of five faces of women runners, but none of them were from the 800-metres, they were all from the 100-metres, so they were used to illustrate a totally different race. It was another example of media manipulation really.
Amanda Smith: But the consequences of that controversy were quite profound, because there was no distance 800-metres or greater, for women in the Olympics from that race in 1928 until 1960 or something, was it?
Anita Tedder: Yes, it’s unbelievable, isn’t it, to think of that now.
Amanda Smith: Well in your research, you’ve spoken to many women who are still alive who competed in Olympic Games of the 1920s and ‘30s; is there a common theme or thread about why they wanted to compete in the face of lots of opposition and disapproval?
Anita Tedder: I think what’s fascinated me, what’s really intriguing, I think both Steph and I found that all the women just didn’t care, they didn’t care what people thought. And I would say that’s a very common thing, ‘Oh well I just didn’t care, I wanted to do it’ But there is something else that I think is worthy of more research, is that they all said, well I would think 95% mentioned they had positive male figures, their fathers were positive about them saying, ‘My girl, you can do anything’, or they had male coaches, and so most of them had very positive support from men who didn’t think like de Coubertin. I would like to go and say well it was the women supporting, but they haven’t mentioned that, and I have to be honest and say that’s what they’ve said, male figures were very positive about their sporting aspirations.
Amanda Smith: While Pierre de Coubertin stayed at the head of the International Olympic Committee for 26 years, over which time there was this gradual increase in events for women, from zero back in 1896; did he change his attitude over this time, his view that it was indecent or vulgar for women to compete in the Olympic Games?
Anita Tedder: He didn’t change one jot I’m afraid. He always believed that women should be crowning the victors, not taking part themselves.
Amanda Smith: Anita Tedder, who’s the co-author, along with Stephanie Daniels, of the book, ‘A Proper Spectacle – Women Olympians 1900 to 1936’.
And 100 years after women first competed in a few genteel sports at the Olympics, let’s hear from three Australian women, competing in three tough sports at these Games, beginning with basketball, and the mighty Michelle Timms.
Peter Walsh: As we have some nine seconds of play remaining, and a bit of crude foul trouble I suppose, at the end of a game it can get a bit nasty and messy, but Michelle Timms, I reckon she’d eat roofing nails for breakfast if you gave them to her, with a campaign like this.
Michelle Timms: I actually tend to play mind games with myself, like I like to focus on my own game and get myself mentally up and just talk to myself, do a bit of self-visualisation, and I like to know a lot about my competitor who I’ll be matching up on, on the day, but you don’t get into slagging matches against the person you play against or anything like that. For me. I just like to concentrate on my own game.
Peter Walsh: … out of this game, the Australians will win, Boyd warmly applauded; she goes to sit down; 78-69, that’s the scoreline.
Michelle Timms: That’s the biggy; the big thing is to keep your head on your shoulders and know the game’s not over until you hear that buzzer, and until you hear that buzzer, there’s still a lot that can be done.
Peter Walsh: … Jackson over to Timms, Timms puts up the shot! In it goes! In it goes! And have a look at Michelle Timms, right on the hooter! Michelle Timms has … !
Michelle Timms: I’ve never once in my playing career wished I was involved in an individual sport. It’s just such a great atmosphere being in a team sport, and it’s so realistic to real life. Like, you know, no matter where you are, what working environment you’re in, it’s always a team situation. And so it’s created a lot of good living experiences for me, being involved with the team.
Peter Walsh: … early in the piece, and the crowd; I’m not going to talk about them, you can listen to them.
CHEERS
Amanda Smith: And the women’s basketball final will be played tomorrow night.
Last Tuesday the road cyclist, Anna Wilson contested a tight finish to her race.
Glenn Mitchell: Wilson’s in there at the moment, but she’s being boxed in. It’s still Melchers in the front; will she peel away to allow Zijlaard to come through? Pucinskaite also trying to come through, there’s Anna Wilson …
Anna Wilson: I just love the speed you can attain, and the adrenaline of all fighting for position as you come into a sprint finish, especially if you know you’re the fastest one left.
Glenn Mitchell: Wilson trying to come up …
Graham Dawson: She’s in medal contention, Glenn.
Glenn Mitchell: Wilson coming down the right side of the course but it’s going to be a Gold Medal I fancy to the Netherlands, it is …
Graham Dawson: Oh, she’s just missed.
Glen: She’s just gone …
Anna Wilson: You try to focus very much on yourself. I mean you go, especially a road race, you know, it’s a three-hour event and you can have a lot of bad luck, you could puncture, you can get caught up in a crash, so there’s a lot of things that have to go right, and there’s a lot of riders out there who can pull off the win on the day. So you really can’t focus on that, that’s a big distraction and just takes away from your own energy I think. You’ve really got to focus on yourself and what you know your abilities and strengths are, and just go after it, and if someone is better than you on the day, then you can’t do anything about it.
Glenn Mitchell: … disappointing for Australia, that they couldn’t …
Amanda Smith: Alas, Anna Wilson just missed out on a medal.
The Australian Women’s water polo team led by Bridgit Gusterson were also involved in a tight finish in their Gold Medal playoff against the USA last Saturday.
Clinton Grybas: … scores a level, with 13 seconds to go! Brenda Villa with her second goal of the match …
Bridgit Gusterson: Pretty scary when you think men have been in the Olympics, or were the first team sport in 1900, and it’s taken 100 years to get women’s water polo into the Olympics, and it was a hard fight.
Clinton Grybas: Gusterson shoots! Is it a goal? No, it’s gone in, but a US player has been ejected, and the whistle came before …
Bridgit Gusterson: You have to be very tough. You have to have people scratching, or grabbing you, grabbing you, grabbing your bathers, and still just be able to get on and do things.
Clinton Grybas: Higgins shoots! She’s scores! Yvette Higgins has won it! At the buzzer! Unbelievable!
CHEERS
Clinton Grybas: The most incredible finish you will ever see!
Amanda Smith: Well have these Olympic Games pushed women’s sport into the spotlight more than ever before? Will the attention that our female athletes are enjoying at the moment last beyond these Games?
Debbie Simms is the Manager of the Women and Sport Unit of the Australian Sports Commission. She says that in addition to the obvious reasons for increased acceptance of, and interest in, female athleticism, which reflect wider social shifts, there are other reasons as well.
Debbie Simms: The never-say-die attitude, and I think we’ve seen this in women’s water polo. To go out there basically and to fight for what they want, and never to say die, that it’s not good enough to be seen as second rate, and it’s not good enough that the men’s water polo can have a go and the women’s can’t. And I think that attitude, that strength of character, and the willingness to really fight for what they believe in, has had an impact as well.
Amanda Smith: How much of the enthusiasm for women’s sports that we’ve seen around these Games, the crowd and media support that the Australian women’s teams and individuals have got, how much of this enthusiasm and support is going to last beyond these Games, Debbie?
Debbie Simms: It’s interesting. We tend to see most major international events involve both women and men, and thinking at the moment Olympic Games of course, but also things like the Commonwealth Games, there is always a sharp increase in terms of media coverage, in terms of spectator support, and it all sort of is tied up nicely in what we probably would call national pride. Unfortunately, we do see that once Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games and other major events finish, about six months out, you see that drop off. And it reverts back to female athletes not getting the same amount of coverage, perhaps not getting the same sort of spectator crowd support that they got during the Olympic Games. You don’t sort of see the same adulation and the same respect, and I suppose for us, the main question is why can’t we sustain this equality of media support and social acceptance. You know, why can’t we get that extended past the Olympic Games?
Amanda Smith: So you’d say that the profile that female athletes and teams have around these Games, is more a matter of expediency than genuine or lasting interest? By expediency I mean a Medal’s a Medal, no matter who wins it for your country.
Debbie Simms: Absolutely, and I think it’s because of the national pride that everybody unites and gets behind the athletes, irrespective of whether they’re male or female, or whether they’re indigenous or white Australian, that sort of becomes a non-issue, and it’s like that is an Australian out there doing us proud. But it seems that once the Games finish, and euphoria sort of works off, that that isn’t maintained, and for example you may have the women’s water polo, the girls playing in an event, say, down the track, and it doesn’t seem to generate the same sort of media interest or spectator interest, that it does during the Olympics. So I think there is a little bit about that expediency and that it doesn’t matter who’s winning a Medal, as long as it’s an Australian, but once the Games finish, that seems to disappear.
Amanda Smith: Well how do you think the profile that female athletes are enjoying during these Olympic Games can be capitalised on so that it might extend beyond the period of the Games?
Debbie Simms: A couple of things, and one of them is something that we’re seeing particularly over in America, and I think it is actually a positive influence, and that’s the role that the corporate sector or major businesses can actually play. And we’ve seen for example, major corporations introducing advertising campaigns which are actually pitched at women, and involve some very strong and proactive athletic images of female athletes, and we’ve seen that over here for example, with the Nike ads, and particularly the ones with Cathy Freeman. And that certainly is portraying very strong athletic images, it’s actually promoting athleticism as fashionable, and certainly from their point of view it’s trying to sell the gear that goes with that. But certainly at the end of the day it is a strong image, and it’s still keeping female athletes in the public eye, and I think that if we can get more of the corporate sector and big business here in Australia following that particular trend, and using female athletes in a positive manner, and continue to do that post-Olympics, that will go some way to ensure that female athletes are continued to be seen roughly in about the same way as male athletes.
Amanda Smith: With the multinationals, they’re really only pitching to women and promoting female athletes because over the last five years, the last decade, they’re male market for sportswear and sports-shoes has stagnated. I mean should we really be relying on them to be promoting the image of female athletes?
Debbie Simms: Oh certainly not, and I think at the end of the day, we have to ensure that organisations themselves, the sporting organisations themselves, they are promoting their athletes equally, that they are supporting and resourcing their athletes equally. I think we will see as we tend to see with most Olympics, a huge amount of success from our female athletes, and so it’s actually going to be in sporting organisations’ best interests to capitalise that and continue to promote their successful female athletes. But we have to ensure that they do that post-Olympics and continue to do that in the four years in the lead-up to the next Olympics. I don’t think we can rely on the corporate sector; I suppose that’s just a bonus, or an aside, if they continue to do that.
Amanda Smith: And it is a kind of funny thing, isn’t it, that the multinational philosophy of just sell it, has been to the benefit of public perceptions of female athletes, even though the intention hasn’t been altruistic, they do just want to sell more shoes.
Debbie Simms: Yes. I suppose it’s been one of the few times when we can actually benefit from that urging, but yes, at the end of the day the corporate sector is out there to sell more apparel, more sporting shoes, more sporting equipment. I suppose what has been positive is in the way that they’re selling it. In the past, it has tended to be more of the ‘sex sell’ angle, and using models in, say, bikinis or skimpy wear, or even athletes in skimpy wear. We’re seeing a little bit of a change with companies such as Nike, Reebok, Fernwood Fitness Centres here in Australia, in that they’re actually taking real athletes, showing them in the uniforms that they would normally wear, and doing what they do best out there on the field, on the track or in the pool, and it’s actually promoting more of a positive image rather than that sort of sex image. Now that actually has been certainly a change, and a positive change. But it’ll be interesting to see if in the next couple of years they actually take a different marketing slant again.
Amanda Smith: Debbie Simms, who manages the Women and Sport Unit of the Australian Sports Commission.
Some more Australian women competing at these Games, now, beginning with the rowing pair and Bronze Medallists, Rachel Taylor and Kate Slatter, doing a double act here about which of them takes the front seat.
Rachel Taylor: Well the front can be whichever way you want it to be. Is it the person who crosses the line first, or is it the person who sits in front of the other person? Since we go backwards and row round the lake, I don’t really know who is in front, and it can be either direction.
Kate Slatter: In my opinion, I’m in front. And in your opinion, you’re probably in front. I cross the line first, so that’s got to put me in front, doesn’t it?
Neville Oliver: … and Rachel Taylor and Kate Slatter are doing their best work in this last thousand metres …
Kate Slatter: The thing is, it gets quite specific; we have to be the mirror images of each other, because we have one oar each, I would be useless without Rachel, I’d go round in a circle, and so we both depend so much on each other for balance, and we have to move perfectly in sync, our hands need to move at exactly the same level in the boat, and to get that just to perfection, is I guess the exciting thing of why we row for, like I’m up to ten years now, I get to row the perfect stroke.
Amanda Smith: Rowing pair Kate Slatter and Rachel Taylor. Another dynamic duo at these Games has been the beach volleyball Gold Medallists, Natalie Cook and Kerri Pottharst.
Simone Thurtell: Kerri Pottharst now steps up to the line; serves an ace! Brings up Gold Medal point here, Kerri Pottharst!
Kerri Pottharst: The success of ’96, I think the Stadium was sold out one year before the actual Olympic Games, and that showed how popular beach volleyball was in America and to the people all around the world that came to the Games. But I think in terms of success of the sport, I think it’s fantastic for any sport to be involved in the Olympic Games, and to have Olympic champions, it’s always great for marketing, it’s always great for sponsors to be able to say you’re an Olympic champion or we’re an Olympic sport, and for me, at my stage of my career, it can’t be a better time, because I’ve played indoor volleyball all my life, and then I had a really serious knee injury and switched to beach, and just after that, beach was made an Olympic sport, and I’m ready to wind down my career after the Olympics, so it sort of fitted into my life plan quite well.
CHEERS
Simone Thurtell: With the toss, centred across Bede, onto Shelda, and it goes wide! The Australians have won the Gold Medal!
Amanda Smith: But the Australian sportswoman we’re especially thrilled for here at The Sports Factor is Lauren Burns, who won the first ever Olympic Gold Medal in taekwondo on Wednesday night. You’ve met Lauren several times on The Sports Factor over the past few months, as we’ve tracked her training and preparation for this new Olympic sport, which included getting her nose broken twice. Earlier this morning, Michael Shirrefs spoke with Lauren Burns, who’s just about lost her voice from all the excitement and media attention these past couple of days.
Lauren Burns: Well I guess in some ways, you know, it was more than I could ever imagine; it was so much bigger than any world championship that I’d ever been to. But in another way it was also just an ordinary fight like any other, and just in extraordinary circumstances. So I mean, I just went out there and I gave it everything that I had (including my voice) and I think that really made the difference, was the heart and soul that I put into it. And I just put the tactical things aside and just trusted that they would just be reactionary out there.
Michael Shirrefs: Well your first opponent, Shu-Ju Chi from Chinese Taipei has been a major obstacle to you in the past, and was always going to be a threat here. How good was that for your head to have dispatched her so early in the competition?
Lauren Burns: Oh it was a big achievement for me, but I really didn’t have time to think about it because I was straight back out there within half an hour. So I didn’t even have time to even think what I’d done there. When I was walking out, I saw, after I’d fought Taipei and I looked up and I saw one of my friends just bawling her eyes out, and I thought ‘Wow, yeah, I did do something good there’, but I just didn’t have time to focus on it. So it was good to beat her early and she’s a really tough opponent, and I knew that I’d have to work really hard; I knew that I’d have to keep my concentration level there 100% to beat her. But then I just concentrated on the next one, because I really wanted to; my aim was to win the tournament, not just to beat one person.
Michael Shirrefs: Well the thing that seemed to separate you from all three of your opponents, was your total lack of hesitation. Do you think that psyched the others out?
Lauren Burns: Yes, well I mean I felt so much strength and so much power on the day with inside of me, and I felt that the crowd lifted me up and they really, they were just awesome, the crowd … I really think that part of that Medal that I have is theirs as well, because they really helped me out with that, and I think that all of my opponents felt that as well, they felt the crowd and they felt that I used that power inside of myself.
Michael Shirrefs: Lauren, you said to me two weeks ago that you could see the rest of your life beyond the Olympics; so now that you’ve made history and scored the ultimate sporting accolade, does that future still seem clear?
Lauren Burns: Yes, absolutely. At the moment I’m just enjoying the moment, and I’m now looking forward to seeing some of my friends and family and hanging out and doing some of the social activities that I haven’t been able to do in the past few years. But I’m just going to see how I go; I’ve really put everything into the Games, and I’ve had quite a few injuries along the way, and I just feel like I need to give my body a little bit of time to rest and recover, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do after that.
Amanda Smith: Lauren Burns, Australian Olympic Taekwondo Gold Medallist.
Well that’s The Sports Factor from Homebush Bay for the final time. As the Sydney 2000 Games are nearing their conclusion (although still plenty of competition of the weekend, and of course the closing ceremony on Sunday night).
The Sports Factor is produced by Michael Shirrefs; I’m Amanda Smith.
Guests on this program:
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Anita Tedder British co-author (with Stephanie Daniels) of the book "A Proper Spectacle - Women Olympians 1900-1936". |
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Michelle Timms Australian women's basketballer with the Opals. |
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Anna Wilson Australian road cyclist. |
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Bridget Gusterson Captain of the Olympic Gold Medal-winning Australian women's water polo team. |
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Debbie Simms Manager of the Women and Sport Unit of the Australian Sports Commission. |
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Kate Slatter & Rachel Taylor Australian coxless pair and Olympic Silver Medallists. |
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Kerri Pottharst Australian Olympic Gold Medallist in beach volleyball. |
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Lauren Burns Australian Taekwondo champion and Olympic Gold Medallist. |
Publications:
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A Proper Spectacle - Women Olympians 1900-1936 Author: Stephanie Daniels & Anita Tedder Price: $AUS 34.95 Publisher: In UK - ZeNaNA Press, Houghton Conquest. In Australia - Walla Walla Press, Petersham. ISBN 1 876718 12 9 http://www.olympicwomen.co.uk |
Presenter:
Amanda Smith
Producer:
Michael Shirrefs
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