Lawn bowls great Karen Murphy was elated after recently being elevated to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame – but it was a day also tinged with tragedy on a personal level.
Murphy received a call from yachting legend and Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman John Bertrand informing her of the coveted honour – just hours after her mother Lorraine had died.
‘Mum had battled brain cancer and I’d been looking after her for a few years and she passed away at 5.57am that day and then John called me at about 11am and told me, and I just burst into tears,’ she told News Corp.
‘I was extremely honoured when I heard the news, to be joining such a wonderful list of athletes across all sports is truly special.
‘I feel incredibly grateful to all those who have been on my journey with me. This award is one which I share with our whole bowls community.’
Murphy is a two-time singles world champion and 2006 Commonwealth Games Gold medallist – and widely regarded as one of the sport’s greatest ever female bowlers.
She joins the likes of Olympic gold medallist Sally Pearson and surfing legend Mick Fanning as fellow Sport Australia Hall of Fame recipients.
Other 2024 inductees include motorsport great Mark Skaife, former Kookaburras’ hockey captain Mark Knowles and dual-sport Paralympics champion Liesl Tesch.
Lawn bowls great Karen Murphy was elated after recently being elevated to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame – but it was a day also tinged with tragedy
Murphy received a call from Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman John Bertrand just hours after her mother Lorraine (pictured left with Murphy) had died
Pearson is one of only nine Australian women ever to win an Olympic track and field gold medal, netting gold in London in 2012 and silver in 2008 in the 100m hurdles as well as World Championship success in 2011 and 2017 as two Commonwealth Games titles.
The first Australian to be named World Athlete of the Year, and already twice a winner of the SAHOF’s ‘The Don’ Award, Pearson said it was ‘surreal’ to be included in such esteemed company, including the likes of Cathy Freeman, a childhood hero.
‘I don’t think it’s really sunk in. It’s so surreal. It feels like it just happens to people you see on TV,’ she said.
‘I still feel like I’m watching the Sydney Olympics and watching Cathy Freeman run. When Steve Hooker won gold in Beijing I was sitting on the sidelines.
‘Even though I won silver, I was thinking, this is really cool. I’m watching this person, this athlete, just doing amazing things. It’s a bizarre feeling that I’m one of those people now.’
Fanning enters as a three-time world champion as part of an illustrious surfing career headlined by his encounter with a shark at J-Bay in South Africa in 2015.
Despite the shock incident, Fanning returned to the same ocean the very next year and secured a famous victory to etch his name in Australian sporting folklore.
Fanning is already a member of the World Surfers’ Hall of Fame and Australian Surfing Hall of Fame and said he was pretty ‘flabbergasted’ to be told of his elevation in to the SAHOF.
Sally Pearson (pictured winning gold in the women’s 100m hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics) also got the nod from the Hall of Fame
Surfing great Mick Fanning (pictured shortly before being attacked by a shark in South Africa in 2015) is another inductee
‘Australia produces so many incredible sporting stars and to be honoured as one of those, among the greats, I’m pretty flabbergasted, to be honest,’ he said.
‘It’s not something that we ever look for when we are doing our sport, but to be acknowledged later in life is very special and I’m very honoured to be able to share it with people who have supported me.
‘I wasn’t the most talented person, I wasn’t the most gifted, I didn’t have the most money or anything like that, but I just gave it my all.’
Skaife was one of Australian motorsport’s most successful drivers, winning the Bathurst 1000 six times from 1991-2010 with five touring car titles, including a stunning hat-trick of V8 Supercars championship crowns from 2002-04.
Four-time Olympian Knowles was the was the youngest member of the Kookaburras team that ended decades of Olympic heartache by winning gold in Athens in 2004.
He won Olympics bronze medals in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, along with two World Cups, four Champions Trophies and four Commonwealth Games gold medals before his retirement in 2018 after more than 300 international caps.
