TitleMrs.
Name:Louise
Surname:Sauvage
Nationality:AUS  Australia
Date of Birth:18/09/1973
Function:Athlete
 
Biography:
Louise Sauvage, OAM, is one of Australia's greatest athletes, a professional who has dominated the world of wheelchair track and road racing for over a decade. She has nine Paralympic gold medals two Olympic gold medals, four Boston Marathon wins (the last in 2001) and she holds world records in the 1500m, 5000m, and 4 x100m and 4 x 440m relays. Louise has just returned from America, and the highlights of her trip were buying a new wheelchair and going to Disneyland. Louise was born in 1973 with a severe spinal disability, a type of paraplegia. She underwent 21 operations before she was ten and three more serious operations as a teenager. Louise participated in sport from the age three when she began swimming to aid her upper body development, and she dreamt of being a Paralympic swimmer. She was given her first racing wheelchair when she was eight and began wheelchair sports as a form of recreation. At the age of 14 she underwent major spinal surgery to correct curvature of the spine. She was forced to give up sport for two years and when she resumed found that the steel rods in her back inhibited her swimming, so began competitive wheelchair racing. At the age of 16 she was selected to represent Australia at the 1990 IPC World Championships in Athletics, which were held in Holland. Louise's nickname is Lewis. Her motto is 'you never know what you can achieve until you try', and her aim is simply to be to be the best in the world. Louise once went to see a friend with a pet shop, who turned out to be having trouble selling the runt of the litter of fox terriers because it was so small. Louise took the eight week old puppy home and it became Miss Penny. Miss Penny will be three next month. She is very good, and very social - though not with other dogs. She loves swimming and playing with sticks and is very obedient. In fact, she has been trained to be extremely obedient because it's very difficult to chase after a disobedient dog in a wheelchair.
 
Related Database Events:
General26/5/2000

         
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