" *I never thought of myself as being different, or disadvantaged. I'm just me - the way I am. The circumstances of my life put me in a wheelchair - but it has been my own efforts that have taken me around the world, and to the successes I have had. "

Louise Sauvage
Australian Paralympics Champion

Louise Sauvage is one of the greatest track athletes Australia has ever produced. She is also Australia's most famous sportsperson with a disability.

Louise was born with myelodysplasia, a severe spinal disability that inhibits the function of the lower half of the body. She was born with one leg underneath her and one over the top, right up to her shoulder. At four and a half hours old, the doctors gently pulled her leg down only to have it snap. She would undergo more than twenty operations before the age of ten.

But Louise was not one to be slowed down by disability. She followed her elder sister Ann into sport and became the only member of their swimming club with a disability. Soon she was involved in swimming, basketball and a range of track and field events, competing at national championships and succeeding brilliantly.

But in 1987 and 1988, she experienced a time she describes as 'the worst years of my life'. That's when the scoliosis that she suffered from worsened and, at age fourteen, it became necessary for her to have metal rods inserted. Two operations turned into three when one surgery was not entirely successfu, and Louise lay for months wondering whether she would ever be able to participate in sports again.

Although Louise made an incredible recovery, the rods in her back now meant that competitive swimming was out - so she turned her focus to the track. By 1990 she was competing in the World Championships. After winning gold and setting a new world record at these games, she decided to make sport her full-time career.

Two years later she represented Australia at the Barcelona Paralympic Games, and arrived home with two golds and a silver. The next year was her first entry into the Boston Marathon, which she won in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2001. At the Paralympic Games in Barcelona, she won her first of nine gold and two silver medals from three Paralympics. In Atlanta, she won her first Olympic gold medal in the women's wheelchair demonstration event and the only gold medal for Australia on the track. And in 2000 she won a gold medal in the 800-metre wheelchair demonstration race at the Olympic Games and two golds and a silver at the Paralympics - making hers an Australian household name as an athlete, a representative of her country and a role-model for anyone with a challenge.

As Louise is fond of saying, "You'll never know what you can do or achieve until you try."

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