Significance

I am at the Devonport Athletic Club where Cathy Freeman competed in seven times between 1993 and 2001. The question is, how was Cathy significant to Tasmania, or more specifically, Devonport’s Athletic Carnival? As Ian Wotherspoon, who was Devonport Athletic Club’s former elite athlete coordinator stated, Cathy was the saving grace for the annual Devonport Athletic Carnival. She competed here not only when not many people had heard her name before, but also once after winning gold in the 400m Sydney Olympics 2000. When the Devonport Athletic Carnival was struggling, Cathy helped race there in 1993, bringing in hundreds of people to watch her win the Gift and the 200m race. Cathy re-energized the location and helped many other athletes in Tasmania. Cathy was significant to the Devonport Athletic Carnival because she was accountable for the revival of the place. Just by being at the carnival, Cathy helped elevate the expectations of female athletes in Tasmania. She also helped motivate and inspire Tasmanian athletes, spurring them on to be more ambitious with their goals.

Cathy is extremely significant to Australia because she represents Australia as an athlete. However, Cathy not only represents Australia, but the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ too. In the 1994 Commonwealth Games, Cathy ran around the track with the Aboriginal flag, amassing over 300 million views of her victory celebration. This small act is significant because it was a turning point in athletics and Aboriginal politics. After seeing the overall approval and importance of the flag from the public, the Commonwealth then pushed to allow the flag to be legally recognized.

In the Sydney Olympics on September the 15^th, 2000 Cathy was chosen to light the flame for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. Cathy lighting the cauldron was more than a sign of unity and reconciliation, she showed Australia and the world what a reconciled nation could look like and that you can have pride in being an Australian and First Nation’s person. Cathy is seen as the person who lit the fire, the symbol, the bearer of the Aboriginal cause and its growing status in Australian politics. The Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates even stated that, ‘It is a very major statement that an Indigenous Australian can light the flame at the Millennium Games.’

Thirdly, Cathy is also significant for Australia’s people. For many, Cathy Freeman is a hero, a role model, an inspiration, and a significant human/person. She is such a significant figure in Australia’s history that people still talk about Cathy today, twenty-one years later. For many Indigenous Australians, Cathy is an influential figure in their life, someone to look up to, someone that they pride in. She helps boost Aboriginal people’s self-esteem and realise that they can dream big and achieve a lot. When Cathy won the Young Australian of the Year award, Cathy’s mother herself said that “It would make them stand up and say ‘Look, if she can do this, I can.’ Nowadays, because Cathy has retired from competitive running, she has set up a foundation named the Cathy Freeman Foundation. It is aimed at helping Aboriginal children who live in remote locations to receive education, so they can realise their full potential and achieve their goals and dreams. It has been significant to the impacted children’s’ lives, some even going to university because of the help they got from the foundation. Cathy has shown how influential sport can be in not only a sporting context, but a political and social justice context too. She shows extreme pride in her Aboriginal heritage, showing it to the world. By doing this, Cathy smashes non-Indigenous Australians’ negative stereotypes about Australian Aboriginal people. Cathy is extremely significant because she has shown to the world that it doesn’t matter what race you are, as long as you work hard and dream big.