Louise savage biography

Louise Sauvage OAM was just 16 years old when she participated at her first IPC Athletics World Championships. From the moment she won her first gold medal &#; in world record time &#; it was clear that a star had arrived on the international stage.

Sauvage went on to change the sport of wheelchair racing by becoming one of its first truly professional athletes and, in the process, dominated it for a decade and raised the profile and perception of Paralympic sport and Paralympic athletes in Australia and around the world.

Highlights of her sporting career include:

• Nine gold and four silver medals from four Paralympic Games between and , including four gold medals and two world records at the Atlanta Paralympic Games. She won Paralympic gold medals across every distance between m and m.
• Two gold and one bronze medal from three appearances in m demonstration races at the Olympic Games, including gold at the Sydney Olympic Games
• Twelve gold and two silver medals from four IPC Athletics World Championships, including six gold medals in
• Five gold medals from five appearances in m demonstration races at the IAAF World Championships
• Numerous victories in the world’s most prestigious road races, including four Boston Marathon crowns, wins in the Honolulu (three), Los Angeles, Oita, Sempach and Berlin (two) marathons, the Riverside Rumble 10K International Classic and Peachtree Road Race, and 10 wins in the Oz Day 10K.

Recognition of Sauvage&#;s achievements includes:

• Medal of the Order of Australia in
• Australian Paralympian of the Year in , , and
• Inaugural Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability in
• Sport Australia Hall of Fame in
• Australian Paralympic Hall of Fame in
• Sport Australia Hall of Fame Legend in

Sauvage was selected to light the Paralympic cauldron at the Sydney Paralympic Games and to carry the flag for the Australian Team at the Athens Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony. She has a Sydney ferry, st

Alix Louise Sauvage OAM

The daughter of Maurice Sauvage and Rita (née Rigden), Louise Sauvage was christened Alix after her paternal grandmother, but by family tradition has always been known as Louise. Her father, who came from the French- and Creole-speaking island of the Seychelles off the north-east coast of Africa, met her mother, a '£10 pom' who emigrated from Leicestershire, at a dinner dance in Perth, Western Australia. In they had a daughter, Ann, and four years later, Louise. The two girls were raised in Joondanna, Perth, where Louise attended Tuart Hill Primary School and later, Hollywood Senior High. She left High School after year ten, completing a TAFE course in office and secretarial studies.

Louise Sauvage was born with the congenital spinal condition myelodysplasia. Her condition necessitated no less than 21 operations before she was ten years old. From the age of three she was swimming to strengthen her upper body and attempting to walk with the aid of splints and callipers. In she was Perth's 'Telethon Child' as part of a Channel 7 fundraiser for children with disabilities. At the age of eight she began to use a wheelchair, greatly increasing her mobility. She took up wheelchair sports and demonstrated natural ability. As a child, Sauvage later recalled, she had 'raced, swum, thrown discuses, shot puts and javelins and played basketball in sport for athletes with a disability'. By Sauvage, labelled 'The Joondanna Flash' by the local paper, had been selected to compete in the Second National Junior Games for the Disabled. The following year, aged ten, she became the youngest ever athlete to compete in the National Senior Paraplegic and Quadriplegic Games in Sydney. She came home with two silver and three bronze medals. In she returned from the National Junior Games in Perth with a haul of fifteen medals, including seven gold. In her early teens Sauvage und

Alix &#;Louise&#; Sauvage OAM was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in as an Athlete Member for the sport of athletics. In she was elevated as the 41st Legend of Australian Sport.

Legend status is the highest honour that can be bestowed in Australian sport and in Sauvage’s case it has extra historical significance because she is the first Para-athlete to achieve it.

Sauvage has been recognised not just for an extraordinarily successful career as a wheelchair racer but for her pioneering efforts in raising the profile and perception of Paralympic sport and athletes in Australia and around the world.

In keeping with the SAHOF criteria for Legend status, her performances are considered part of Australian folklore and hers is the first name that springs to mind when people think about Para-sport.

Professionalism, dedication and a steely determination have driven a career where Sauvage has received universal acclaim. This was formalised in when the inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards – known as the Oscars of sport – named her World Sports Person of the Year with a Disability.

That same year, she was given the honour of lighting the cauldron at her home Paralympics in Sydney, where she won two gold medals and a silver and was largely responsible for elite Paralympic athletes earning the public respect and admiration that their able-bodied counterparts enjoy. She carried the flag leading out the Australian team at the Athens Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony four years later.

In a career that began at age 16 at the International Paralympic Committee World Athletics Championships in until she retired after the Athens Paralympics in , she was a dominant force.

The many highlights include:

• Nine gold and four silver medals from four Paralympic Games, including four gold medals and two world records at Atlanta in She won Paralympic gold medals across every distance between m and m.
• Two gold and one bronze medal from three appearances in m demonstrati

Australian paralympic athlete

Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM (born 18 September ) is an Australian paralympicwheelchair racer and leading coach.

Sauvage is often regarded as the most renowned disabled sportswoman in Australia. She won nine gold and four silver medals at four Paralympic Games and eleven gold and two silver medals at three IPC Athletics World Championships. She has won four Boston Marathons, and held world records in the &#;m, &#;m and 4x&#;m and 4x&#;m relays. She was Australian Female Athlete of the Year in , and International Female Wheelchair Athlete of the Year in and In , her autobiography Louise Sauvage: My Story was published.

Early life

Sauvage was born in in Perth, Western Australia, the daughter of Rita (née Rigden) and Maurice Sauvage. Her mother was a Ten Pound Pom from Leicestershire, England, while her father was born in the British colony of Seychelles. She was born with a severe congenital spinal condition called myelomeningocele, which inhibits the function of the lower half of the body, giving limited control over the legs. In she was Perth's Telethon Child as part of a Channel 7 fund-raiser for children with disabilities. She used calipers to help walk until she received her first wheelchair. Her myelomeningocele required her to have 21 surgical operations