Louise Sauvage

Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM (born 18 September 1973) is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.

Sauvage is often regarded as the most renowned disabled sportswoman in Australia.

She won nine gold and four silver medals at four Paralympic Games and eleven gold and two silver medals at three IPC Athletics World Championships.

She has won four Boston Marathons, and held world records in the 1500 m, 5000 m and 4x100 m and 4x400 m relays.

Sauvage was born in 1973 in Perth, Western Australia, the daughter of Rita (née Rigden) and Maurice Sauvage.

Her mother was a Ten Pound Pom from Leicestershire, England, while her father was born in the British colony of Seychelles.

She was born with a severe congenital spinal condition called myelomeningocele, which inhibits the function of the lower half of the body, giving limited control over the legs.

In 1976 she was Perth's Telethon Child as part of a Channel 7 fund-raiser for children with disabilities.

She used calipers to help walk until she received her first wheelchair.

Her myelomeningocele required her to have 21 surgical operations by the time she was ten years old.

As a preteen, Sauvage had scoliosis, and at 14, she had surgery to fix a curvature in her spine, using steel rods.

The operation was only partially successful, and as an adult, she still has a curve of roughly 49 degrees.

She has not had any subsequent surgery to fix the curve in her spine.

Sauvage grew up in Joondanna, Western Australia, attending Tuart Hill Primary School and Hollywood Senior High School before leaving to complete a TAFE course in office and secretarial studies.

She underwent 20 operations before the age of 10.

Her parents encouraged her to participate in sport from a very young age.

She started swimming when she was three years old, with her parents enrolling her in swimming classes to help her build upper body strength.

Sauvage started to compete in wheelchair sport at the age of eight.

Before that time, she had attempted to play school sport with her classmates but her disability made it difficult.

She took up competitive wheelchair racing when she was 15.

Sauvage also tried wheelchair basketball as a youngster.

From the ages of 10 to 13, Sauvage represented Western Australia in the national swim championships.

She was forced to retire from swimming when she turned 14, because of surgery.

When Sauvage first started competing in wheelchair racing, the chairs all had four wheels and were similar to the chairs that they used off the track.

The chairs did not have any form of steering.

The front wheels were smaller than the back wheels, and when at high speed, they were prone to wobbling.

In 1990, Sauvage competed in her first international competition in Assen, Holland, where she won gold in the 100 m setting a new world record.

She also won the 200 m race but was disqualified for moving out of her lane.

At the Stoke Mandeville Games in England the same year, Sauvage took gold in the 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, and two relays.

Before the start of the 1992 Summer Paralympics, Sauvage held Australian records for the 100 m, 200 m, 800 m, 1500 m and marathon in women's wheelchair racing events.

She was being marketed by the Australian Paralympic Federation as Australia's top female wheelchair road racer.

At the Barcelona Paralympic Games, she won gold medals in the 100 m, 200 m and 400 m and a silver in the 800 m TW4 events and finished sixth in Marathon TW3-4.

In recognition of her athletic feats she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia.

Sauvage was in danger of not going to the 1992 Paralympics because of funding issues for the Australian Paralympic Federation.

The Federation made an emergency appeal for funding from the public in order to cover the cost of transporting the Australian team to Barcelona.

The Federation found funding through a variety of small donations that allowed Sauvage and other Australian athletes to compete.

At the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games, she won four gold medals - 400 m (T53), 800 m (T53), 1500 m (T52-53) and 1500 m (T52-53) and finished fourth in Marathon (T52-53).

By 1997, racing wheelchairs had basically finished undergoing massive changes to improve them.

She was Australian Female Athlete of the Year in 1999, and International Female Wheelchair Athlete of the Year in 1999 and 2000.

In 2002, her autobiography Louise Sauvage: My Story was published.