Cathy Freeman

Cathy Freeman
Cathy Freeman, 2008
Full name	Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman
nation	Australia
birthday	16th February 1973
place of birth	Mackay , Queensland
size	165 cm
Weight	56 kg
Career
discipline	200 m , 400 m , 4 × 100 m , 4 × 400 m
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic games silver 1996 Atlanta 400 m gold 2000 Sydney 400 m  World championships bronze 1995 Gothenburg 4 × 100 m gold 1997 Athens 400 m gold 1999 Seville 400 m  Indoor world championships silver 1999 Maebashi 4 × 400 m  Junior World Championships silver 1992 Seoul 200 m  Commonwealth Games gold 1990 Auckland 4 × 400 m gold 1994 Victoria 200 m gold 1994 Victoria 400 m silver 1994 Victoria 4 × 100 m gold 2002 Manchester 4 × 400 m
last change: August 22, 2012

Freeman immediately after the 400m final at the 2000 Sydney Olympics

Cathy Freeman with Ian Thorpe and Jeff McMullen at a press conference in 2007

Play media file

Spectator reaction to victory over 400 meters at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Australian Broadcasting Corporation clip .

Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman OAM (born February 16, 1973 in Mackay , Queensland ) is a former Australian athlete . She ran individual and relay races over 200 and 400 meters in international competitions . She belongs to the Aborigines . Her greatest successes include the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney , where she lit the Olympic flame and became an Olympic champion .

As an ambassador for her people, the indigenous people of Australia, she drew the attention of the Australian and world public to their situation. TV cameras often showed her tattoo on her right shoulder in large format, which consists of the words COS I'M FREE (Because I am free). In 1998 she was named Australian of the Year .

Athletic career

Cathy Freeman won her first race in 1981 over 80 meters. Freeman's first coach was her stepfather, Bruce Wales. In 1988, Freeman made her first international sportswoman trip to the United States to attend an international athletes' meeting. On February 3, 1990, she won the gold medal with the Australian 4 x 100 meters relay at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland , New Zealand .

Peter Fortune became Freeman's trainer in 1991 and was so until the end of his career. Together they took part in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona , where Freeman missed the semi-finals over 400 meters. With the 4 x 400 meter relay she took seventh place.

In the run-up to the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria , Freeman fought several duels with Melinda Gainsford-Taylor , also a world-class Australian short-distance runner. At the Commonwealth Games, Freeman won the 400 and 200 meter finals. In the 4 x 400 meter relay, the Australian relay was the first to cross the finish line, but was disqualified because of a bump between Cathy Freeman and a Nigerian runner. A sporting low point in Freeman's career was fourth place at the World Championships in Gothenburg in 1995, where she competed with the aim of winning the 400-meter race. However, she won the bronze medal with the 4 x 400 meter relay. At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta , USA, Freeman was second over 400 meters behind Marie-José Pérec from France . This was the first medal for an Aboriginal in an individual Olympic competition. She was eliminated in the semi-finals over 200 meters. Perec also won this discipline. In the post-Olympic season, Freeman was the more successful of the two competitors at the major European athletics meetings. The greatest sporting moments in Freeman's running career before Sydney 2000 were the gold medals over 400 meters at the 1997 World Championships in Athens and 1999 in Seville . In 1998, between the two competitions, she was injured and had to do without participation in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia . With the 4 x 400 meter relay, Freeman took fifth place in Athens.

According to her, Freeman experienced the greatest moment of her sporting career at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia in 2000, when she won the gold medal over 400 meters in a time of 49.11 seconds. She was seventh over the 200-meter route and fifth with the Australian 4-by-400-meter relay. When there was no success in the following years, Cathy Freeman announced her retirement from competitive sports on July 15, 2003. Cathy Freeman writes about her successes in an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph the day after her resignation was announced :

I don't think anybody, certainly not myself, realized what a toll Sydney took on me. It was wonderful, marvelous, the pinnacle of my career. But it was also incredibly traumatic. More traumatic than I allowed myself to feel at the time and slowly but surely I have come to realize that I could not go through all that again.
And realistically, to win a gold medal in my own country, having lit the Olympic flame, there was never going to be a moment for an athlete finer than that.
And climaxing with that night in the Sydney Olympic Stadium when I won the 400 meters and then just sat there on the track, hardly daring to open the window in my mind that would let me experience all the feelings that were fighting to get in my head . I don't think I ever really did open the window fully.

“ I think no one, especially myself, was aware of the sacrifice I had to make for Sydney. It was wonderful, fabulous, the peak of my career. But it was also incredibly traumatic. More traumatic than I admitted to myself at the time. And slowly but surely I realized that I couldn't go through all of this again.
And, realistically, there will never be a more glorious moment for an athlete than to win a gold medal in my own country and have the Olympic flame lit.
And it all culminated on the night at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney when I won the 400 meters and then just sat on the running track barely daring to open the window in my mind that would let me experience all the feelings that were struggling to Getting left in my head I don't think I ever really opened the window all the way. "

- Cathy Freeman : Daily Telegraph

Life

Cathy Freeman was born to Norman Freeman, a talented rugby player, and Cecilia Sibley. Cecilia brought her son Gavin (* 1961) and daughter Anne-Marie (* 1966) into the marriage. In 1974 Cathy's brother Norman was born and in 1976 her brother Garth was born. The father Norman was ill, suffered from alcoholism and left his family in 1978. Since 1979 Cecilia and her children lived with Bruce Barber; a short time later he married Cecilia. Bruce became Cathy's greatest patron: he raised money to pay for travel expenses and showed great love for the family.

Shortly after Cathy Freeman returned from the Commonwealth Games in 1990 , her sister Anne-Marie died. She then dedicated all of her future successes to her late sister. In 1992, her biological father, Norman Freeman, died of a stroke. Cathy Freeman lived from 1991 to 1996 with Nick Bideau, a Melbourne journalist who discovered and managed her early on. In 1999 she married Alexander (Sandy) Bodecker, a manager at sporting goods manufacturer Nike whom she looked after while suffering from cancer in 2003. Since 2003 both lived separately. In 2009 she married the Melbourne stock exchange trader James Murch. The couple became parents to a daughter in July 2011.

Political

Cathy Freeman always felt like an Aborigine and showed this confidently in public. She experienced first hand the many problems that the Australian Aborigines face. In her early running career, she was discriminated against because of the color of her skin. At the exclusive girls' school Fairholme College in Toowoomba, for which she received a scholarship in 1988, she was one of three black girls among 600 students. As her personal hero, she named Nelson Mandela , who campaigned for black rights in South Africa.

About her origin, Freeman told media representatives after her success with the 4 × 400 m relay at the Commonwealth Games in 1990: Being Aboriginal means everything to me. I feel for my people all the time. A lot of my friends have the talent but lack the opportunity. Translation: “To be Aboriginal means everything to me. I feel for my people all the time. Many of my friends have talent, but opportunities are lacking. "

When Freeman ran the lap of honor at the 1994 Commonwealth Games with the Australian flag and the Aboriginal flag, which caused a minor scandal, the media suddenly became interested in the runner and Aboriginal. From one day to the next, Freeman was able to reach a wide global audience and campaign for the Aborigines in the media. She also waved both flags at the 1997 World Championships and the 2000 Olympic Games, although the rules of the International Olympic Committee do not allow it.

literature

• Cathy Freeman: Born to Run: My Story . 2007, ISBN 978-0-14-330238-4 .

Web links

Commons : Cathy Freeman  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Personal website of Cathy Freeman (English)
• Cathy Freeman in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Cathy Freeman in the database of Athletics Australia (English)
• IOC site about Cathy Freeman (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Cathy Freeman gives birth