Cathy Freeman was a female Australian Track and Field athlete who paved the way for Indigenous athletes at the professional level. Cathy's career started in 1990 when she was sixteen competing at the World Junior Championships to 2003 when she announced her retirement. Her life story, experience and charity work continues to have an impact on people all over the world.
Cathy Freeman was born on February 16th 1973 in Mackay, Queensland, Australia. At that time, Indigenous peoples were still mostly secluded in Australia. Cathy spoke about her early experiences with racism and how it shaped her character. She realized very early on that she was not treated the same way as the rest of the Australian population. Cathy stated that her experience…show more content… She practiced the Bahá faith and even though she wasn't a devout believer, she was still treated differently because of it. In 1988, Cathy received a scholarship to compete and study at a girls boarding school, Fairholme College in Toowoomba. Later that year, she ran 11.67 seconds in the 100m and set her sights upon competing in that year's Commonwealth Games. She was selected for the 1990, 4x100 relay team at the Commonwealth games. They won the gold medal making her the first Indigenous gold medal winner and one of the youngest gold medalists in the history of the Commonwealth Games at only sixteen years old.
After making history at the Commonwealth Games, Cathy began to train for her professional career by being introduced to her coach Peter Fortune. She continued to train under Peter for the rest of her career. Cathy competed at a couple World Junior Championships, but fell short of gold. Her next professional competition was at the 1994 Commonwealth Games where she won the gold medal in both the 200 and 400m. Cathy ran her victory laps holding both an Australian and Aboriginal flag. Her show of bravery and resilience was not missed by the fans in the stadium, but caused her to face backlash from Arthur Tunstall, the head of the
