The Australian Women's Register

Over the course of her swimming career, despite recurrent illness and injury, Petria Thomas won 3 Olympic Gold Medals, 3 World Championships, 9 Commonwealth Games Gold Medals, 13 Australian Championships, and 3 Pan Pacific Gold Medals. Her tally of eight Olympic medals (three gold, four silver, one bronze) is the best ever for an Australian woman, equal with Dawn Fraser and Susie O’Neill. Thomas was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport Swimming Hall of Fame in 1996, and was crowned the AIS Athlete of the Year in 2001 and 2002. She currently resides in Belconnen, Canberra, with her husband Julian Jones.

Sarah (Fanny) Durack battled local swimming authorities to become the first Australian woman to compete at the Olympic Games. In 1912, at Stockholm, she won the gold medal in the 100 meters freestyle event, beating her compatriot and training partner, Wilhelmina (Mina) Wylie. She went on to break numerous world records until she retired from competitive swimming in 1921.

Ronda Kimble was a netball player who advanced through the ranks to become an All Australian netball umpire. She has been involved in the game of netball for nearly forty years, as a player, coach, umpire, administrator and archivist.

Natalie Ward is one of only three women to win an Olympic medal and four games; the other two being softball teammates Tanya Harding and Lenaie Roche. She began her international career as a teenager, joining her sister Linda on the national team. She went on to become the first woman to play more than 400 games for Australia, and served as captain of the team. Ward regards the silver medal won in Athens as her proudest moment in sport.

Lauren Jackson is widely regarded as Australia’s greatest female basketball player ever. She has led the nation’s team, the Opals, to three silver medals at successive Olympic Games in Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008) and a much cherished bronze in London in 2012. She was chosen to carry flag for the Australian Olympic team in London in 2012, which was, she says, ‘the proudest moment of my sporting career’.