Cathy Freeman OAM

Readers note: This is an excerpt from the 200 Treasures exhibition catalogue, developed in 2017. This content was written as a brief biography on why this person was included in the exhibition.

When Cathy Freeman won a gold medal at the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990, she was the first Indigenous Australian to win a track and field medal.

An elated Freeman told the media that ‘being Aboriginal means everything to me’. The joy of this win was shattered when she returned to Brisbane to learn that her older sister, who suffered from cerebral palsy, had died. This devastating loss ‘charged me [with] a sense of purpose,’ Freeman would later write. The young runner was still relatively unknown in 1990, but over the next decade she would become a household name both for her achievements on the track and for her politics.

Freeman was born in Mackay, Queensland, in 1973, and showed early promise as a runner. Competitive events and travel exposed her to racial prejudice and on one occasion, although she won all the events at a meet, she received only ribbons: the white girls who finished after her received the trophies.

Freeman’s career peak in the 1990s coincided with a national focus on race relations. The debate that raged over the Stolen Generations was intensely personal for her because her grandmother was one of the children who had been removed from their families. As Freeman became an increasingly prominent runner, she charged her wins with displays of Indigenous pride, carrying both the Aboriginal and the Australian flag on her victory laps. This she first did after winning a gold medal in the 400-metre sprint at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, Canada – a gesture that grabbed media attention.

Freeman’s greatest moments came at the 2000 Sydney Olympiad: she lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony and went on to win a gold medal in the 400 metres, following it with her signature victory lap, cementing her place in Australian sporting and national history.