2022 TV Production
Heroes & Legends – A Celebration of the 2022 Sport Australia Hall of Fame
The Sport Australia Hall of Fame was beamed straight into the livings rooms of Australians all over the country in 2022 as Heroes & Legends – A Celebration of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame hits the screens of Channel 7 straight after the cricket on Thursday, December 8. The program showcased the stars and stories of the nation’s most loved sporting heroes.
This year, as well as elevating two Members to Legend status in the Hall of Fame, SAHOF welcomed nine new Inductees as they joined 587 others in Australia’s greatest sporting team, plus we heard from Ash Barty AO and Peter Norman as winners of the 2022 The Don Award and The Dawn Award.
But it is more than just a sports ceremony…
With thanks to Sport Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport, supported by Sportscover and Victoria University and produced by JAMTV Australia, fans again enjoyed all the excitement and emotion of Australian sport’s most prestigious event when the Seven Network broadcast Heroes and Legends – a Celebration of the 2022 Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
The SAHOF Class of 2022
The Australian Paralympic movement owes its origins and its ongoing success to pioneering orthopaedic surgeon and rehabilitation specialist Sir George Bedbrook. Bedbrook was a spinal injury innovator and advocate and he led the first Australian team for athletes with a disability on an overseas tour to the 1957 Stoke Mandeville Game and was one of the leading figures in the foundation of the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games and Australia in the Paralympic Movement.
Harding’s contribution to Australian softball spanned a total of 283 matches across 15 years and more than 50 tournaments that included four successive Olympic Games appearances. She played a pivotal role in helping to make the Australian team a potent force on the world stage and was one of three members of the Australian softball team to win medals at four consecutive Olympic Games – 1996, 2000, 2004 & 2008.
Judd played 279 games across 14 seasons with the West Coast Eagles and Carlton Blues. He had the distinction of not only captaining both clubs but also winning a Brownlow Medal at each of them. He was a six-time All Australian and five-time club champion, and won the 2005 Norm Smith Medal win in a losing team before returning the next year to captain the Eagles to the 2006 flag. He was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2021.
Cox was one of the most decorated netballers of her generation. She represented the national team in 108 senior games across 16 years and her haul of medals included gold at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and the 2007 and 2011 World Netball Championships. She also played more than 250 games for the Sydney and New South Wales Swifts, Perth Orioles, West Coast Fever and Melbourne Vixens and won five national netball competition Premierships.
Honeychurch remains one of Australia’s most successful tenpin bowlers, and when she became a world champion in Northern Ireland in 1996, she helped elevate her sport into the mainstream. She then became one of Australia’s most unlikely heroes at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when, with a mix of composure and accuracy, she claimed an incredible three gold medals.
At the time of her induction into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, Webb had claimed seven career majors and 41 LPGA tour titles, as well as 13 Australian, 15 European and 3 Japanese events, and recently won her first Senior women’s major – the 2022 Women’s LPGA Championship. She twice won the LPGA player of the year award, was a three-time LPGA Tour Money List winner and in 2005, became the youngest person inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Fittler played 336 games for Penrith Panthers and Sydney Roosters across 16 seasons in the NRL. He won two Premierships (1991 & 2002), played 31 Origin games for the NSW Blues for 8 series wins, and led the Kangaroos in 20 of the 40 matches he played for them, which included the ’92, ’95 & 2000 World Cup titles. In 2000 he won the Golden Boot as the world’s best rugby league player and in 2018 he was inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame.
Hurley had a profound impact on Australian basketball at the top level across four decades. He played a key role in establishing the Australian Institute of Sport basketball program, and served as either head or assistant coach of the national team for more than a decade. He led the Perth Wildcats to the 1995 NBL title, was NBL Coach of the Year in 2004/05 and was inducted into the Australian Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004.
Webber enjoyed a celebrated 12-season F1 career that included 215 starts, 42 podiums, 13 pole positions and 9 race wins for Minardi, Jaguar, Williams and Red Bull Racing. In 2009, he became the first Australian since Alan Jones win an F1 race when he claimed his maiden victory at the German Grand Prix. He twice won both the Monaco and British Grands Prix and played a key role in securing Red Bull four consecutive Constructors’ World Championships.
2022 Legends of Australian Sport
In a remarkable career, Ron Clarke broke 17 official world records, including 12 in an extraordinary 44-day tour of Europe in 1965 and held every world record from two miles to the one-hour run. During this flurry of races in 1965, he became the first man to run three miles under 13 minutes, then four days later he took 36.2 seconds off the 10,000m world record.
A remarkable athlete and model citizen, Ron Clarke exemplified everything it was to be a great sportsman and an inspirational person off the track, and now he’s a Legend of Australian Sport.
Image Credit: Newscorp
Over the course of his 15-year, 145 Test career, Shane Warne was not only one of the most identifiable and envied Australians on the planet, he was also one of the most innovative and dominant. His on-field performances and Aussie spirit always ensured maximum box-office appeal and his playing record, sense of theatre, capacity to rise to the occasion and larger-than-life character ensures he stands eternally among the greats of international cricket.
The man, the myth, and now, the Legend.
2022 SAHOF Awards
Peter Norman
The Dawn Award Winner
SAHOF Member and Olympic silver medallist, the late Peter Norman has been honoured with The Dawn Award for 2022.
The champion Australian sprinter is best remembered for the role he played at the medal ceremony after the men’s 200-metre final in the Mexico Olympic Games in 1968 when he supported fellow athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos – Smith and Carlos raised their gloved fists in protest at the treatment of African-Americans in the United States, a stance widely known as the Black Power Salute and, wearing the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge, a dignified Norman stood in solidarity with the American pair.
Despite copping a subsequent backlash, Norman never backed away from supporting the actions on that day and for this reason he is the recipient of The Dawn Award for 2022
Ash Barty AO
The Don Award Winner
Triple Grand Slam champion Ash Barty has become just the third athlete or team to win The Don Award more than once after she was named this year’s winner.
Entering 2022 as the world’s number one female tennis player, the Queenslander became the first homegrown Australian Open singles champion since 1978. Two months later and still the top-ranked player in the world, Barty announced her retirement from professional tennis. She quit at the top of her game with dignity and displaying the utmost professionalism, acknowledging she did not believe she could devote the time and effort required to remain number one.
As a result of these actions and achievements, Barty was accorded the honour of her second The Don Award.