Who was Cathy Freeman?

Cathy Freeman (born 16 February 1973) is a Kuku Yalanji woman, Olympic 400-metre champion, and one of the most celebrated Australian athletes of all time. She is best known for winning gold in the women's 400 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, before about 112,000 spectators at the Olympic Stadium and a global television audience of more than three billion. She also lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony, in a powerful symbol of Aboriginal-Australian reconciliation.

Freeman was born in Mackay, Queensland, in 1973. She began competing as a sprinter as a child, winning her first national championship at age 13. She made the Australian Commonwealth Games team in 1990 at the age of 16 and won her first international gold medal in the 4 x 100 metres relay at the 1990 Auckland Games. Her first individual international success came at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, where she won gold in the 400 metres (becoming the first Aboriginal Australian to win individual Commonwealth Games gold) and unfurled both the Aboriginal Flag and the Australian Flag in her victory lap. The action was controversial at the time, with Australian team officials initially objecting to the Aboriginal Flag display, but Freeman's stance was widely supported in Australia and internationally.

Freeman's most famous moment was the 25 September 2000 race at the Sydney Olympics. After lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremony on 15 September, she carried extraordinary expectations as Australia's main hope in a women's 400 metres field that included world champion Marie-Jose Perec of France. Perec withdrew from the Games before the race, citing media pressure. Freeman won the final in 49.11 seconds in a green and gold body suit. The ensuing victory lap, in which Freeman ran carrying both the Aboriginal Flag and the Australian Flag, was the moment that 'Australia embraced an Aboriginal champion' in the words of subsequent commentators.

Freeman's wider career and post-running life have extended her influence. She won the 1990 to 2002 Australian of the Year (1998), Officer of the Order of Australia (1998), Australian Indigenous Athlete of the Century (2009), and many other honours. She retired from competition in 2003 and has since worked through the Cathy Freeman Foundation (founded 2007) supporting Indigenous education. She has been involved in various reconciliation and Indigenous-rights initiatives. The Cathy Freeman Park near the Sydney Olympic Stadium and the Cathy Freeman Avenue at Sydney Olympic Park preserve her name in the urban landscape. The image of Freeman lighting the cauldron and the image of her winning the 400 metres remain among the most reproduced Australian sporting photographs.