2024 Induction and Awards Program
Celebration of the 2024 Sport Australia Hall of Fame
This year, SAHOF will welcome new Inductees who will join the 601 Members in Australia’s greatest sporting team, as well as elevating two Members to Legend status in the Hall of Fame plus the announcement of the 2024 winners of The Don Award and The Dawn Award.
2024 Induction and Awards Gala Dinner
2024 ‘Heroes & Legends’
Heroes & Legends – A Celebration of the 2024 Sport Australia Hall of Fame
The Sport Australia Hall of Fame was beamed straight into the livings rooms of Australians all over the country in 2024 as Heroes & Legends – A Celebration of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame hits the screens of Channel 7 straight after day 2 of the cricket on Saturday, December 7. The program showcased the stars and stories of the nation’s most loved sporting heroes.
This year, as well as elevating two Members to Legend status in the Hall of Fame, SAHOF welcomed eight new Inductees as they joined Australia’s greatest sporting team, plus we heard from Jess and Noemie Fox as winners of the 2024 The Don Award and Lauren Jackson AO as the winner of the 2024 The Dawn Award.
But it is more than just a sports ceremony…
With thanks to Sport Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport, supported by Gold Partners Ampol and Crown, Silver Partners Sportscover and Deakin University and produced by JAMTV Australia, fans again enjoyed all the excitement and emotion of Australian sport’s most prestigious event when the Seven Network broadcast Heroes and Legends – a Celebration of the 2022 Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
Missed The Sport Australia Hall of Fame Heroes & Legends 2024?
If you missed Heroes & Legends you can still view it on demand through 7Plus
The SAHOF Class of 2024
One of Australia’s greatest surfing careers spanned almost two decades, during which Mick Fanning AO overcame personal hardship, injury and even an encounter with a shark. A three-time world champion (2007, 2009 and 2013) who recorded 22 Championship Tour victories, Fanning was named Australian Male Surfer of the Year nine times in 16 years. In 2015, he famously fought off a shark that had become entangled in his leg rope during the J-Bay Open in South Africa. It was a moment that led to Fanning and fellow Australian surfer Julian Wilson, who came to his aid, sharing SAHOF’s Spirit of Sport award for a remarkable act of bravery and mateship. Fanning is a member of the World Surfers’ Hall of Fame and Australian Surfing Hall of Fame.
Photo courtesy Alamy.
As one of just nine Australian women ever to win an Olympic track and field gold medal, Sally Pearson (nee McLellan) OAM combined a near-flawless technique with supreme resilience to overcome multiple injury obstacles during her decorated 100m hurdles career. In achieving Olympic greatness (gold in 2012 and silver in 2008) and World Championship success (gold medals in 2011 and 2017 and a silver in 2013), as well as two Commonwealth Games titles, Pearson was the first Australian to be named World Athlete of the Year (2011) and was twice awarded SAHOF’s “The Don” Award, in 2012 and 2014. Her two World Championship triumphs came six years apart in very different circumstances. For the first, she produced a personal best time of 12.28 seconds in a blistering performance in Daegu, South Korea. The second victory, returning self-coached from a four-year absence that denied her the opportunity to defend her Olympic title in Rio in 2016, counts as her proudest individual achievement.
Photo courtesy Alamy.
Leading businessman and administrator Gerry Ryan OAM has made major contributions to five different sports across more than three decades. Best known for his work in road and track cycling, one of Australia’s most successful and generous businessmen turned his lifelong passion for sport into a commitment to giving sportspeople the chance to live out their dreams. It started with cycling, initially through financial support for Kathy Watt’s quest for Olympic gold in 1992, then as founder of Australia’s first professional cycling team, also by fostering the next generation of Australian cyclists via VIS and AIS programs, and as owner and chairman of the GreenEdge Cycling Team from 2012. Other sports to benefit from Ryan’s time, mentorship and investment include basketball (particularly women’s), horse racing (as a long-time sponsor of the National Jockey’s Trust), Australian football (serving as vice-president of the St Kilda Football Club) and rugby league (as part-owner of the Melbourne Storm).
Photo courtesy Hamish Blair Photography.
Hailing from Rockhampton in regional Queensland, four-time Olympian Mark Knowles OAM graduated from being one of hockey’s brightest prospects to Australia’s decorated and inspirational captain. In 2004, he was the youngest member of the Kookaburras team that ended decades of Olympic heartache by winning gold in Athens. Knowles would also earn bronze medals in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, along with two World Cups, four Champions Trophies and four Commonwealth Games gold medals before his retirement in 2018 after more than 300 international caps. He was named World Young Player of the Year in 2007 and World Player of the Year in 2014, his first as Australian captain.
Photo courtesy Alamy.
Mark Skaife OAM was one of Australian motor sport’s most successful drivers, augmenting six Bathurst 1000 victories from 1991-2010 with five touring car titles, including a stunning hat-trick of V8 Supercars championship crowns from 2002-04 to add to those from 1992 and 1984. Originally from Wyong on the NSW Central Coast, Skaife graduated from an apprenticeship in go-karts while working as a mechanic in his family’s automotive business to become one of motor sport’s greats, known for his daring style and tactical nous. For a time, he shared the most touring car title wins with Dick Johnson and Ian Geoghegan, a record which has since been surpassed by Jamie Whincup. Skaife retired from full-time driving in 2008 but returned to win a sixth Bathurst in 2010 alongside Craig Lowndes. A Supercars and Australian Motor Sport Hall of Famer, Skaife’s other roles have included being a team owner, circuit designer and TV commentator.
Photo courtesy Alamy.
Karen Murphy AM is a stereotype-defying trailblazer of the lawn bowls community, who elevated her sport well beyond its usual reach with her success at the elite level over a 20-plus year career. With gold medal-winning performances at Commonwealth Games and World Championships levels, Murphy donned the green and gold at international level on more than 660 occasions – a testament to her durability and resilience. She won four World Championship gold medals – and two in succession in the singles event, one in pairs and one in fours – plus a silver and three bronze, while also claiming one gold (Melbourne, 2006) and three silver medals across five Commonwealth Games. At the last, on the Gold Coast in 2018, she was chosen to read the Athletes’ Oath.
Photo courtesy News Corp Australia.
As one of Australia’s greatest Paralympians, Liesl Tesch AM excelled in two vastly different sports and inspired a generation of able-bodied athletes and athletes with a disability. Having become an incomplete paraplegic – unable to use her lower legs – in a mountain bike accident as a 19-year-old, Tesch initially found her athletic calling in wheelchair basketball, representing Australia in that discipline at five Paralympics, winning silver medals in Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004), as well as a bronze medal in Beijing (2008). Sailing was her next sporting challenge, and Tesch combined with Daniel Fitzgibbon to win back-to-back gold medals in the Two Person Sailing SKUD 18 at the London 2012 Paralympics and Rio 2016 Paralympics, the latter her seventh. Recognised for promoting and facilitating sport for people with disabilities, and now a member of the NSW parliament, Tesch won the inaugural Uncle Kevin Coombs Medal for the Spirit of the Games at the 2016 Australian Paralympic Awards.
Photo courtesy News Corp Australia.
Regarded as the “founding mother of women’s basketball” in Australia, Betty Watson OAM created a pathway for generations of athletes of all ages and varying abilities. With her husband Ken, Watson helped to transform basketball at all levels through a commitment to developing women’s sport and fostering junior participation. As the foundation president of the Australian Women’s Basketball Council and its Victorian equivalent, Watson lobbied tirelessly for women’s basketball’s Olympic inclusion, and served as an administrator and team manager for decades in an effort to pursue equal opportunities for women in Australian sport. The WNBL Rookie of the Year and Basketball Victoria’s Female Player of the Year awards are named in honour of Watson, who in 2006 was elevated to legend status in the Australian Basketball Hall of Fame.
Photo courtesy News Corp Australia.
2024 Legends of Australian Sport
Hunt combined elite talent, an immense work ethic, determination, discipline and dogged court craft to become one of the greatest squash players, while helping to popularise the sport during one of its golden eras.
Inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as an Athlete Member in 1985, Hunt was world No.1 from 1975 to 1980. He won four World Open Squash Championships in five years, including the inaugural title in 1976.
A triple World Amateur Champion before turning professional aged 24, Hunt claimed 178 of the 215 tournaments he contested over two stunning decades of dominance yet remained an understated model of humility and the epitome of decency and fair play.
At home, he was an eight-time national champion. Internationally, he claimed eight British Opens (1969, 1974, 1976-81) before a stress fracture of the lower vertebrae and osteoarthritis prompted a reluctant retirement in 1982.
Perhaps most famously, that last British Open final was a marathon encounter against the Pakistani prodigy Jahangir Khan, in which Hunt proudly fought through back pain and past an opponent half his age to win in over two hours.
Sketch Images courtesy of Brian Clinton.
Milton is Australia’s most successful Paralympic Winter Games athlete, with 11 medals (six gold, three silver and two bronze) from five appearances – the first aged just 14.
His was a remarkable journey from making history as the nation’s first Winter Paralympics/Olympics gold medallist – in the Slalom in Albertville, France, in 1992 – to becoming just the fourth Australian to also compete at a Summer Paralympics after qualifying for three different cycling events in 2008 in Beijing aged 35.
Incredibly, following a second gold medal in Lillehammer in 1994, Milton swept all four alpine titles (Slalom, Giant Slalom, Downhill and Super G) at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 before retiring from his original sport. In 2006, he set a speed skiing record of 213.65kph, an Australian record and a world record for a person with a disability.
Milton had also excelled at the IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, winning a total of six gold medals between 1996 and 2004. Having overcome oesophageal cancer, Milton then turned to cycling, completing his Paralympics career at his sixth Games in 2008.
Inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as an Athlete member in 2014, Milton has overcome what for many would be insurmountable obstacles.
At nine, his left leg was amputated due to osteosarcoma. In 2007, he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, for which there is a five-year survival rate of just 20 per cent. Last November, cancer was detected for a third time, as Milton had surgery to remove a tumour from his bowel.
Motivated by the desire to explore his limits and potential, the Canberran was named the 2002 Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability among many other national and international awards.
He has also represented his country at two World Paratriathlon Championships, completed an ultra-marathon on crutches, climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and twice walked the Kokoda Track.
Sketch Images courtesy of Brian Clinton.
2024 SAHOF Awards
The Dawn Award Winner
Lauren Jackson AO is widely regarded as one of the greatest Australian female basketballers of all-time. She was a star franchise player for Seattle in the WNBA and shone on the international stage with four medals for Australia at the Olympics. She also won two WNBA titles and seven WNBL championships across a long and distinguished career. But as inspirational as she has been on the court – including a comeback at 40 – her work off the court has been equally significant and enduring.
Photo courtesy of NewsCorp
The Don Award Winner
A sense of family and an unwavering persistence to achieve against the odds are traits that Australian sports fans have long cherished. The 2024 Paris Games provided the perfect example with the Fox siblings, Jess and Noemie, who collectively won three gold medals. Jess won gold in the Women’s Slalom C-1 and the K-1, claiming gold in the event which had eluded her at previous Olympics, while defending her Tokyo title. Noemie had to get past her sister first, which she did, before winning her first gold in the Women’s Kayak Cross.
Photo courtesy of NewsCorp