This is an archive copy of a document originally located at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/sportsf/stories/s541027.htm
With Amanda Smith
26/4/2002
Wheels on Fire
Summary:
For more than 10 years, LOUISE SAUVAGE has been Australia’s world
champion wheelchair racer. She’s transcended the label of ‘athlete with a
disability’ to simply become one of our best-known athletes, though not
without controversy. Here, she reflects on her life in sport.
Meanwhile, 1980 Olympic medallist RICK MITCHELL has sparked off a furious debate
in athletics circles. He says that Australian runners, with the sole exception
of Cathy Freeman, are a hopeless bunch, because their times are no better than
the national records set by his generation 20 to 30 years ago. While the rest of
the world has improved on these times, Australian runners have not.
Details or Transcript:
Amanda Smith: And this week on The Sports Factor: Is Australian running going
backwards? Why is it that Australian track athletes today are running no faster
than their counterparts of 30 years ago, while the rest of the world has moved
on?
THEME
Amanda Smith: Also coming up, the very fast-moving Louise Sauvage, our champion
wheelchair racer. Louise was born with a spinal disorder, and made to walk in
callipers when she was very young, until she discovered how much faster she
could get around in a wheelchair.
Louise Sauvage: The callipers were really painful and I really hated it, and I
was so restricted I couldn’t go very fast or very far, and in a wheelchair I
could go really fast, I could go a lot further, and it did present a lot more
freedom to me.
Amanda Smith: And more from Louise Sauvage, and her life in sport, later in the
program.
First though, to a debate that’s been sparked off in Australian athletics
circles. Rick Mitchell was an Australian 400 metres runner in the late ‘70s,
early ‘80s. He’s a Commonwealth Games Gold, Silver and Bronze Medallist, and
a Silver Medallist from the Moscow Olympic Games. And he reckons Australian
track athletes of today, with the sole exception of Cathy Freeman, are
performing well under their potential. Now the question is often posed as to why
Australian runners haven’t been anywhere near as successful as our swimmers
have, in recent years. And the defence is that heaps more countries compete on
the track than they do in the pool; there’s just a lot more international
competition in the track events than in swimming. It’s an argument Rick
Mitchell is well aware of, and he doesn’t disagree with it. But, he says, this
only serves to mask a deeper problem amongst Australian runners who compete over
the 100 to 800 metres distances. These problems crystallised for Rick Mitchell
at the Australian Athletics Championships in Brisbane earlier this month.
Rick Mitchell: And I was sitting down with an old room-mate of mine from some
Commonwealth Games trips gone by, Gary Brown, who won the 400 hurdles in
Brisbane in 1982. And we were just talking about what we were seeing, and at the
same time, as you tend to do, having a little reminisce about some of the old
fun times. And a 20-year-old athlete next to us, when we mentioned the name
Raylene Boyle, asked who she was. And after sort of a pregnant pause and picking
my stunned body up off the ground, I started to explain. As I was doing that, I
was asked the question, ‘How would she go racing Lauren Hewitt?’ and for me
the answer was obvious, and that was that she’d win and win easily, and I
thought that she’d handle Hewitt easily.
And that got me thinking, and I actually was aware of these stats but I hadn’t
actually thought of them in terms of the total context, and I started to look at
the 100 to 800 metre men’s and women’s event group. And it occurred to me
that there are a whole range of performances there that are simply outdated, in
terms of the national records. We have national records in the women’s 800
that’s 26 years old; we’ve got a national record in the men’s 200 that’s
34 years old; we’ve got a national record in the men’s 800 that’s also 34
years old; four of the best five times in the men’s 400 were set in the
‘80s, and it just sort of goes on. And yet the athletes of today are fully
supported through the Institute systems, with taxpayers’ money, I might add,
yours and mine. They’re professional athletes, they have access to far
superior sports science and sports medicine resources, they have access to
competitive opportunity that some of my contemporaries could only dream of. So
we’re talking professional modern athletes now getting everything given to
them who are unable to come up with better performances than the part-timers who
actually held down full-time jobs of 25 and 30 years ago.
Amanda Smith: Well it could be said that when you took the Silver Medal in the
400 metres in the Moscow Olympics in 1980, you got a bit lucky because of the
boycotts of those games by countries like the United States. But in fact your
time then, your running time, was still faster than Australian men are running
now for that event.
Rick Mitchell: Well that’s true. The interesting thing is the second-fastest
time in the world that year was run by an American named Billy Mullins. He and I
both shared that time at 44.84. Markin, who won the Olympic Final went quicker
at 44.60. Mullins and I have raced five times in our careers and I’ve won
every one. And so anyone who wants to put the old ‘Americans would have beaten
you’ argument up to me is more than welcome to do so.
Amanda Smith: Now the counter argument to yours Rick, is that you can’t
legitimately compare competition times and results across generations, that
there are different conditions and circumstances involved. What do you say to
that?
Rick Mitchell: I’m not trying to say that someone from 30 years ago was a
better athlete than someone from today who’s actually performing faster than
the older athlete. The reverse is true here, and I think it’s very easy to
make a direct comparison when in the year 2002 we have athletes in Australia who
can’t produce performances better than those that were produced before man
walked on the moon.
Amanda Smith: Yes but nevertheless, there are some factors, like Ralph
Doubell’s Gold Medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in a time that hasn’t
been equalled or bettered by an Australian since. That was run at high altitude
and other Australian performances in the past have at times been for example,
wind-assisted. It’s not really fair to compare the present with the past
without taking account of those conditions, is it?
Rick Mitchell: Well look I think you can certainly allow for wind assistance,
but at the end of the day track and field is set up on the basis of having a
legal wind assistance level, and as long as times fall within that, I think
they’re legitimate and they can be pretty much compared. But the interesting
thing is that anyone who wants to float the altitude argument needs to take on
board the fact that last year in track and field, 39 athletes from around the
world at sea level, ran faster than Doubell’s time from ’68, and that
includes a couple of guys from the athletics powerhouses of Botswana and
Burundi. So the question I’m asking is if 39 athletes from around the world
can do it, and are doing it, why are Australian athletes hiding behind the
altitude argument? And what’s even more damning is that if you take Doubell
out of the equation, the fastest time by an Australian then becomes Peter
Bourke’s 1.44.80 which he ran to win the national title in Brisbane in 1982
before he won the Commonwealth Games title. That was run at sea-level, that’s
now 20 years old and they’re still not getting close to that. So that’s just
an event group that is plain weak, and I think people just have to stop looking
for excuses and hiding behind a whole bunch of these furphys like altitude and
all of the other excuses they come up with, and accept the fact that they’re
simply not cutting the mustard.
Amanda Smith: Well the Australian athletics scene has been pretty offended by
your comments, Rick, particularly the suggestion that the athletes are more
concerned with looking good than training hard. They reckon they’re training
their guts out. Now I’m not going to disagree with them, but is the training
and preparation smart enough? Are they racing often enough? Are they racing as
much as in the past for example?
Rick Mitchell: I don’t think they are. And I guess my point would be if
they’re training their guts out and they’re simply not matching the times
that were posted so long ago, they maybe need to revisit their training programs
and go back to a few basics. I think they feel the need to run in the Grand Prix
meets and the National Championships. They’re very good at turning up when
there’s a buck on show, but they don’t seem to see the value of turning up
and running at far lower club meets, such as inter-club and regular Saturday
competitions and so on, where they actually learn to go through the process of
racing, particularly when they don’t want to. And that’s an important part
of being ready for the Olympic Games and for the Commonwealth Games and
international competition. What I mean by that is turning up and racing on a hot
Saturday afternoon when it’s 105-degrees and there’s a hot wind blowing off
the desert, and you know you’re going to beat everyone pretty easily, but
you’ve still got to go through the warm-up, you’ve still got to go through
the mental preparation for that event, getting into the blocks and getting out
and doing the job. And it’s all part of mentally toughening oneself up for
competition as well. I think that’s another critical factor that they need to
be looking at.
Amanda Smith: Is the Australian track program so different from what people
overseas are doing? Countries where times have improved over these last 20 or 30
years?
Rick Mitchell: Well look, that’s a good question. And in some areas you might
think not necessarily so, but here’s an interesting point: in 1984, I had the
chance to sit three evenings in a row with Carl Lewis, and we started talking
about his program. Now here’s a guy who was essentially seen as a short sprint
power-event athlete. In his off-season he was running 500 metre and 600 metre
reps in training fairly regularly. Now I told that when I was looking after the
Tasmanian Institute of Sport in the late ‘80s to Australian 100 metre athletes
and their coaches, and they laughed at me. They just didn’t think it was
relevant at all. And I can assure you, that if I look at Matt –
Amanda Smith: Matt Shirvington?
Rick Mitchell: Yes, who is an incredibly talented athlete, unbelievably talented
and I think herein lies my frustration. I see Matt consistently up with the best
in the world at the 50 metre mark, and then they run away from him, and the fact
that they run away from him is telling me not just that they’re more powerful
but there’s some component of their running that has a better endurance base
than his. Because that’s the stage of the race where that factor starts to
come into play.
Amanda Smith: Is there also at the heart of this, a lack of self-belief, Rick,
that international competition is now so fiercely contested that drugs are an
issue now in a way they weren’t 30 years ago, so maybe it’s not as easy for
Australian track athletes to be as confident as it might have been in previous
generations.
Rick Mitchell: One could argue that. The reality is that drugs have been around
in track and field for about 30, 35 years. The Eastern Bloc were playing with
that stuff in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s so we were up against it. But
more importantly, to do that is to again make another excuse for why Australians
compared to Australians of 25 years ago who were drug free, are simply not
running any faster, and yes, I think there is a bit of a self esteem thing
there. I mean one of the interesting things about competing at Olympic and
Commonwealth Games is that you go into the marshalling room for 40 minutes to an
hour before you go out onto the track with the seven people you’re going to
race against. That’s just the way they set the protocol up. So in that room
there’s a fair few mind games go on, and it’s where many races are won and
lost. When I see Australian athletes go out onto the track internationally now,
their body language tells me that someone in that room has done a job on them.
And I just don’t think they’re standing up to it, I don’t think they deep
down have the belief that they’re good enough, and that might be because in
their own hearts they know that their times again particularly relative to some
old Australian standards, are not cutting it.
Amanda Smith: Rick Mitchell, Australian 400 metres runner of the 1970s and
‘80s, and Olympic and Commonwealth Games Medallist. Rick now works as a
business consultant in Brisbane, but says he would gladly offer his experience
and services to Athletics Australia, should they choose to accept.
And now to one Australian track athlete who has performed way above
expectations. She’s won 9 Gold Medals across 3 Paralympic Games, and 2 Gold
Medals in Olympic Games demonstration events. She’s won the Boston Marathon 4
times. In 1999 she was Australian Female Athlete of the Year (though not without
controversy), and in 2000 was World Sportsperson with a Disability. Louise
Sauvage was born with severe spinal damage. She grew up in Perth, and had 24
operations on her back through her childhood and adolescence. But despite the
physical and medical problems, from a very young age Louise Sauvage was always
seriously sporty.
Louise Sauvage: I don’t know whether I was born an athlete but I was
introduced to the sport when I was quite young, and absolutely loved it; found
it was something that I really excelled at. When I was 3 I was taught to swim
and this was to build up my upper body strength to prepare me for the rest of my
life I suppose, and then when I was introduced into wheelchair sports, it was
like, Oh my God, this is so cool.
Amanda Smith: Well there is a picture of you as a little girl, standing with
leg-irons on, it would have been when you were about 3, but it was you who
insisted on getting into a wheelchair rather than trying to walk with those
leg-irons, wasn’t it? I think many people would think that getting into a
wheelchair was about resigning yourself to a life of limitation, but the
wheelchair actually represented something entirely different to you, did it?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, they make you walk in the callipers and the crutches until,
they try at least, until you’re in your teenage years, but by the time I was
about 8 or 9 I was like, I want my wheelchair full time. The callipers were
really painful and I really hated it, and I was so restricted I couldn’t go
very fast or very far, and in the wheelchair I could go really fast and I could
go a lot further. And it did present a lot more freedom to me.
Amanda Smith: Yes well I’m interested that the wheelchair did represent
freedom for you. It’s a nice idea.
Louise Sauvage: Oh yes, it’s just so much easier to get around and I can carry
things and I didn’t see it as limiting myself.
Amanda Smith: When and why did you swap the swimming for wheelchair sports, for
basketball and track and field, and then end up concentrating on the racing?
Louise Sauvage: Initially I did all the sports. I did swimming and the track and
field and basketball, everything. And then when I had the surgery in my teenage
years on my back, I had scoliosis, which is curvature of the spine, and I had
two steel rods placed in my back, and I had two years off sport as a result of
that. And coming back into the sport I couldn’t swim as well as I had in the
past, it limited my movement in the water, so I was a bit devastated because
swimming was what I was possibly going to excel at as I got older. But I found I
couldn’t do it as well as I did before, and just went into the track more.
Amanda Smith: Have you still got the steel rods in your back?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, they’re still there and nobody’s going to touch them.
My back was almost at a 90-degree angle and I was fairly much bent over on one
side, and had a lot of back pain, and usually they wait until you’re a bit
older, until you stop growing to do it, but I got so bad that they did it when I
was 14. But I still have about a 49-degree curve in my back.
Amanda Smith: More operations that you would have now, or is that it?
Louise Sauvage: I don’t have time. No I don’t have time for any more
operations, but you know, kind of stick to the theory if it’s not broken,
don’t fix it. So no, not getting anything done at the moment, although I would
like to get one of my legs straightened. It’s quite bent. But hey, I don’t
have time for that at the moment, so we’ll give it a miss until then.
Amanda Smith: Are there any advantages for you in your sport that you were born
with a spinal condition rather than something happening later?
Louise Sauvage: I think so. I mean there’s a whole variety of people who
compete in my sport, not only the people who were born with a disability, people
who acquire their disabilities through accidents, and things like that, people
who were amputees, there’s lots of different disabilities that fit into my
category of sport. But I think I did have a lot of natural upper body strength
before I even started racing, because I had totally relied on my upper body for
my whole life.
Amanda Smith: Yes, weren’t you as a little tot, didn’t you get around on a
little trolley?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, I had like a skateboard, and everything I did obviously
required upper body strength and I’m built for racing, I have a perfect body
for racing, where I have little legs and then I have a bit upper body, very
strong, and I have really long arms. So I’m totally out of proportion but very
good for racing.
Amanda Smith: Well in Paralympic sport there’s, as you’ve mentioned,
different categories, but there’s also some quite deliciously rude names that
are used within the scene. Tell me about those?
Louise Sauvage: We’ve obviously got different categories and different
categories within my chosen sport as well, which all can be very confusing to
someone who doesn’t know. I mean even going to the Paralympics there’s like
10 100-metre sprints and you can all win a Gold Medal, and it’s like Well how
can you do that? So it all gets very confusing. But you know, I think they did a
really good job during the coverage to try and explain those a little bit, and
people did understand to a certain extent. But yes, we all have names for each
other, and of course different disability groups have different names, I don’t
know whether you want me to mention them or not.
Amanda Smith: Go on.
Louise Sauvage: Well we get called I suppose someone in a chair gets called a
gimp, or a cripple or anything like that, and it’s not derogatory, it’s not
meant to be, and we all call each other that kind of thing. The amputees are the
amps and cerebral palsies are CPs, the blind athletes are blinkies, there’s
lots of different names I suppose we call each other, and some people really
can’t believe you call each other that, but it’s just I suppose something
in-house.
Amanda Smith: Well let’s talk about your sport, wheelchair racing. You’ve
been at the top of the sport internationally now for over ten years. What sort
of changes in the racing and in the technology have happened over that time?
Louise Sauvage: Well technology-wise I suppose since I first started on my first
race chair in 1983, and the changes between that chair and the one I have now is
just massive.
Amanda Smith: Like?
Louise Sauvage: Well we started off with four wheels in our racing chair. It was
not that much different from an ordinary day chair, but a little bit different,
and you know, I didn’t have steering, I didn’t have track steering. I used
to get speed wobbles on the front wheels, which is just unheard of. So it’s
changed a massive amount. But the technology I suppose has slowed down fairly
much in the last five or six years, and I think it’s good because then it
doesn’t come to just a money sport, where if you’ve got the most money I can
make you the best racing chair, where technology is not taking over. I want the
athlete to be part of it, and it’s up to the athlete to make it go, and the
strength of the athlete, not necessarily Well my chair is the most aerodynamic.
Amanda Smith: But when was the change from sitting in a chair to having your
legs under you?
Louise Sauvage: I got my first kneeling chair in ’93, and that was the first
time. The first time I got in it my legs went numb, I couldn’t feel it and I
thought there was no way I was going to get used to this, but I have had a
kneeling chair ever since, it’s such a long time ago. But it’s far more
aerodynamic and a better position for racing.
Amanda Smith: Because you can lean forward slightly?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, you lean forward, you’re in a good position like to go
down hills and things like that, aerodynamic tucked in, and it’s far better.
When you have your legs out, they kind of drag a lot, and if you can kneel
it’s the ideal position. We try to get all the guys into now.
Amanda Smith: Tell me about your gloves, because you make your own gloves,
don’t you?
Louise Sauvage: Oh, they’re shockers at the moment. Yes, I actually make my
own gloves. You can get them made, a company called Harness make them in the US,
and I’ve tried to use them about five times, I keep thinking, because I
actually hate making gloves, it’s just horrible.
Amanda Smith: How do you make them though, what do you make them from?
Louise Sauvage: I start out with a pair of batters gloves, like baseball batters
gloves, and then on top of that I use some tape, it’s like a bandage, sticky
bandage tape, and I start off with that. And I also have padding that I use,
that’s actually neoprene like the wetsuit material, I use that, that’s the
padding, and in the end I sew on this black rubber for grip on the thumb, and
also the first two fingers, and I sew that on with a massive needle, and it just
takes a long time and I actually hate doing it. The ones I’ve got at the
moment need to be renewed so much, I just keep patching them up forever trying
to make them last as long as possible.
Commentary: … Sauvage down the outside, Sauvage gets to the front, Sauvage
pulling clear, she’s going to do it! Sauvage wins! What a reception that is.
Louise Sauvage has brought the house down here.
WHEELS On FIRE
Amanda Smith: Well your job title has always been ‘professional athlete’,
Louise; how much money is there in your sport? I mean are you one of the few
Australian athletes with a disability who can actually make a living from being
a professional athlete?
Louise Sauvage: I’d say so, yes. I wouldn’t think there would be many of us
who do make a living out of our sport. There isn’t a lot of money, I suppose,
out there with regards to prizemoney. The only prizemoney we get is for mostly
road races like the Boston Marathon. There’s only one race in Australia
that’s got a lot of prizemoney for us, and it’s on Australia Day in Sydney,
the Oz Day 10k, so yes, there’s not many races in Australia. But most of my
money that I get I suppose is through individual sponsorship and corporate
sponsorship that allow me to train full-time and to compete all over the world.
So that’s how I make my living.
Amanda Smith: Do you happily accept a role in shifting people’s attitudes
about athletes with disabilities? Because I’d have to say that if anyone has,
you have.
Louise Sauvage: Yes, I’d say so, definitely. And if people say that perhaps
I’m a role model or whatever, I’m quite comfortable with that. If I can
change someone’s perception or attitude towards athletes with a disability, or
people with disabilities in general, then that’s good. That means another
person is aware and another person can tell someone else, or be a little bit
more tolerant towards anybody. And I think I know after the Paralympics, even
just in Sydney, I think the general community’s a little bit more aware of
people with disabilities and they feel more comfortable going out into the
community I think.
Amanda Smith: Nevertheless there have been times when your credibility as a top
athlete has been questioned, Louise, and I’m thinking of the controversy in
1999 when you were named Australia’s Female Athlete of the Year ahead of Cathy
Freeman and Susie O’Neill and Karrie Webb, and claims were made at the time
that you’d been the ‘politically correct’ choice; how did you find having
to defend yourself as a deserving winner of that award, and did it make you
question whether you did deserve it?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, it was a tough time. On the night it was fantastic, had a
standing ovation. My mother was actually there on the night.
Amanda Smith: She’d flown in from Perth?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, she was in Sydney for the night, and it was fantastic; went
home with a pretty big cheesy grin on my face. The next morning woke up to just
so much criticism in the papers and radio and all kinds of media basically
saying that I shouldn’t have won, and that it was a politically correct
decision to have me win and Karrie Webb perhaps should have won. And the whole
day I talked to just about everyone, but it was very frustrating for my Mum to
be there seeing me defend myself time and time again, it was just horrible for
her, and it was her last day in Sydney, trying to spend a bit of time together
and it was just not a very good day. But by the end of it, you know, I had more
positive than negative, and the people who really believed in me would ring up
and say No, don’t believe a word they’re saying, you deserve it, you’ve
been out there for so long and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t deserve
it. And you know, I think it was voted by over 200 individual people and I
didn’t vote, it wasn’t me who decided, they all voted and it was nothing to
do with me. So in the end it turned out OK.
Amanda Smith: Did it cause you a moment’s doubt though?
Louise Sauvage: I didn’t want to doubt it, no. I think you probably do, you
probably sit there and go, It’s not fair, it’s not fair; why pick this, this
is something that I’ve wanted to win for such a long time because it wasn’t
let’s just say an able-bodied award, no athlete with a disability had ever won
it before, and I was I suppose, making history and to me that was fantastic.
I’d broken through another wall, and hopefully making it even better for
anyone else to come along and do that as well.
Amanda Smith: Well there’s also been plenty of debate about whether wheelchair
demonstration events at the Olympic Games should be given proper accreditation,
proper medal status, or even a proper medal, the same size as the others. For
example, your Sydney Olympic Medal for the 800 metres race is a lot smaller than
Cathy Freeman’s is the 400-metres.
Louise Sauvage: Yes, but it’s still the same colour though.
Amanda Smith: But what are your thoughts on all that?
Louise Sauvage: Well the demonstration event that’s held at the Olympic Games
has been there for many years. I don’t believe it’ll ever become full medal,
and I don’t really have a problem with that.
Amanda Smith: Why, because that’s opening the floodgates to a whole lot of
other events for athletes with a disability?
Louise Sauvage: Yes it probably is, and it’s probably not fair for the other
disability groups who don’t have an event there either. I have the opportunity
to compete both Games, and I’m very fortunate, but it is perhaps not fair for
the other sports. But I think it’s important to have something like that,
because it is a prelude to the Paralympics, and I think a lot of people did
enjoy watching it, but I’m not sure that it will ever become full medal. But I
suppose the biggest breakthrough is actually this year at the Commonwealth
Games. We have a full medal event, there’s other events as well, for selected
events for athletes with a disability in different sports as well. And the for
the first time ever, it’s going to be full medal, and I will count on the
medal tally and it does actually become the same medal.
Amanda Smith: Yes, well it’s interesting that you have competed and won Gold
Medals at three Paralympic Games and two Olympic Games in the demonstration
events, but it is only this year that you get to compete in your first
Commonwealth Games.
Louise Sauvage: Yes, I’ve never competed in the Commonwealths before. In
Victoria in ’94, which was the last time they had events for athletes with
disabilities, they were only male events in my sport. So yes, it’ll be
interesting.
Amanda Smith: And this of course, those in Canada were where Arthur Tunstall
made his own statements.
Louise Sauvage: Yes, he was the great PR guy for us.
Amanda Smith: Well do you see it that way?
Louise Sauvage: Oh yes. I can take every positive out of that, no problem at
all. The amount of publicity we got out of it, and the amount of people who
wouldn’t have even known there were people there with a disability competing,
certainly knew after Arthur kind of opened his mouth. But it was great, I
don’t mind at all.
Amanda Smith: Well what are your views on the idea of making wheelchair sports
open events, so that people with or without disabilities could compete equally
together, and so that in a sense the wheelchair becomes, well not a symbol of
disability, but a piece of sporting equipment, like any other, like a bicycle?
Louise Sauvage: Yes, it’s a very controversial subject within my community of
wheelchair racing. My personal view is that I don’t have a problem with
opening it up to able-bodied athletes starting in road races, it just makes my
sport more competitive, and there’s more people there to race against. And
it’ll make it just tougher, and I think that’s fantastic. But I wouldn’t
have able-bodied athletes competing at a Paralympic Games or anything that’s
specifically disability-orientated. But road races definitely, and you know,
your local track meets and things like that, I just think it would open it up
and have more people racing, and I can’t see any problem with that. I don’t
see any able-bodied person having any advantage over me in a racing chair, if
anything they have a disadvantage because they can feel their legs a lot more.
And to sit in that position for that long, good luck to you.
Amanda Smith: And Louise Sauvage has written of her story in a book just out,
published by Harper Sports. And, she’s now in serious preparation for her
first Commonwealth Games, which are of course coming up in Manchester this July.
And that’s The Sports Factor for this Friday. Maria Tickle is program
producer; I’m Amanda Smith.
Guests on this program:
Publications:
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Louise Sauvage - My Story
Author: Louise Sauvage
Publisher: Harper Sport |
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Musical Items:
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This Wheel's on Fire
Artist: Souxie and the Banshees
Composer: B.Dylan/R.Danko
Copyright: Sony Music |
|
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This Wheel's on Fire
Artist: The Byrds
Composer: B.Dylan/R.Danko
Copyright: Sony Music |
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Presenter:
Amanda Smith
Producer:
Maria Louise Tickle
©
2003 ABC
This is an archive copy of a document originally located at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/sportsf/stories/s541027.htm
All copyright remains with the creator.
