The Australian Women's Register

In 1964, at the age of twenty-seven, Phyllis O’Donnell won the first ever world championship in women’s surfing. For her efforts, apart from the glory, she won $250, a surfboard and numerous packets of cigarettes.

When she entered the sport, it was dominated by men, some of whom, she recalls, would take aim at her while she was paddling out to catch waves. She was delighted how far the sport has come and how the position of women in it has improved. ‘The girls, especially on the pro circuit, are absolutely fantastic.’

The Ma Bendall/Phyllis O’Donnell Memorial Interclub Contest with other women’s clubs is competed for once a year.

Layne Beachely is a professional surfer from Manly in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. In 2007 she is regarded as the best female professional surfer in history, having won the World Championship an unprecedented seven times.

Kerry Saxby became the most prolific world-record breaker in athletic history in Melbourne in February 1991 when she set a new record of 11 minutes 51.26 seconds in the 3 kilometer walk event. This took her number of world bests to thirty, which was one better than the previous mark, created by the distance runner Paavo Nurmi. Her world records have been established across a range of distances and venues, sometimes at mixed competitions. Saxby regularly trained with and competed against men and believes this contributed to her success. In the decade of competition when she was at her peak, she never finished outside the top five, and was only disqualified for losing foot contact with the track once.

Saxby’s sporting achievements include representing Australia 24 times in major international competitions. She won 13 individual international medals, won a record 27 Australian National Championships, set 32 world records or world bests, and at 38 years of age she was the oldest athlete to win a medal at world level in 1999. She retired from competition in 2001, but not before achieving a very creditable 7th place in the 20 kilometer walk at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. In 2006, the Australian Institute of Sport selected her as one of their twenty-five ‘Best of the Best’.

Rosina Raisbeck enjoyed a successful career in London and performed on the club circuit across Australia in the 1960s, before joining the Australian Opera in 1971. She was still singing with the company at the age of 72.

Described as ‘one of our greatest and unluckiest’ athletes, Marlene Mathews set a world record of 10.3 seconds for the 100 yard sprint in 1958. Her best times for the 100 metres and 200 metres, set over forty years ago, would have won both titles at the 2005 Australian Athletics Championships were they repeated.

Having missed selection for the 1952 Olympic Games due to a leg injury, Mathews was selected for the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Canada, only to be forced to withdraw from sprint events due to injury once again. Two years later, she was able to compete at the Olympic Games in Melbourne and won bronze in the 100 metres and 200 metres behind Australia’s Betty Cuthbert and Germany’s Christa Stubnick – though many expected her to win. Disappointingly, Mathews was not selected for the 4x100m relay team that year. The team, comprising Shirley Strickland, Norma Croker, Fleur Mellor and Betty Cuthbert, won gold. At a post-Olympics meeting, Mathews was part of a relay team that broke world records for both the 4×220 yards and 4×200 metres.

In 1957, Mathews set the inaugural world record times for the 440 yards and 400 metres. The following year she set her world record of 10.3 seconds for the 100 yards sprint (breaking the 10.4 second record held jointly by Betty Cuthbert and Marjorie Jackson) and of 23.4 seconds for the 220 yards (breaking Cuthbert’s 23.5 second record). She is reputed to have run a ‘wind-assisted 10.1 seconds’ in the 100 yards at the Australian titles. Mathews went on to win the 100 yards and 220 yards at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Wales in 1958. She ran in the relay team that won silver in the 4×110 yards relay. After making the semi-finals in the 100 metres at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, Mathews retired from competition and took up an administrative role. She was an Assistant Manager of the Australian Olympic Team at the Olympics in Munich in 1972.

Marlene Mathews became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1979 for her services to athletics, and an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1999. A Trustee of the Sydney Cricket Ground, she is recognised in its Walk of Honour. Mathews was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985.

Ann Mitchell has been associated with women’s cricket as a player (state and national level), manager, coach, journalist, and administrator for nearly fifty years. She contributes regularly to cricket journals and has provided commentary for Sydney radio and ABC television.

She has also had a long association with women’s university sport, once again as a player and administrator. Most recently, as Executive Director of Sydney University Women’s Sport and Deputy Director Sydney University Sport, Mitchell has made a significant contribution to the status of women in sport, particularly by promoting gender equity in university sport. Over her lengthy career as a volunteer and employee in the sport industry, she has been instrumental in developing opportunities for women in university sports as well as non-playing roles including administration, coaching and sports medicine.

Through her representation on numerous sports boards including Women’s Cricket Australia, International Women’s Cricket Council and Australian University Sport, Ms Mitchell has raised the profile of women’s sport in the community.

In April 2010, Mitchell was made an Honorary Fellow of Sydney University in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, in recognition of her ‘extraordinary contribution to the University, to cricket and to Australian women’s sport for nearly five decades.’

Dorothy Roche became Australia’s oldest gold medal winner when she competed in the women’s fours at the Auckland Commonwealth Games at the age of 61 years and 10 months.

In 2006, Patricia Bridges was awarded the first ever life membership of the newly established golfing organisation, Golf Australia. It was a fitting tribute to her for her years of service to the sport. Throughout a career in golf administration that spanned four decades, she has held several positions on the executive of the Australian Ladies’ Golf Union, including president. In 1994, at the age of seventy-two, she was appointed Chairman of the Women’s Committee of the World Amateur Golf Council, the first Australian man or women to hold an executive position on an International Golf Committee. In the same year, she negotiated exclusively with Holden to sponsor the resurgence of the Women’s Australian Open Championship. The trophy for the winner of the Women’s Australian Open is named the Patricia Bridges Bowl, in her honour.

Patricia Bridges was respected for her organisational skills and her ability to move with the times. At an media conference in 2006 announcing the timing and whereabouts of the 2007 Women’s Open, organisers played a video of some of the up and coming women players. Bare midriffs were once banned in women’s golf but plenty were on show throughout the video. One shot showed images of a young woman with a tattoo on her lower back. ‘Good grief,’ muttered a member of the crowd. ‘Why not?’ responded Mrs. Bridges.

Zali Steggall was the first Australian to win an individual medal in the Winter Olympic Games.

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.