Sporting Witness
Sporting Witness
Nova Peris - Australia's first aboriginal Olympic champion
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February 11, 2021
10 minutes
Available for over a year
In 1996, Nova Peris became the first aboriginal Australian to win an Olympic gold medal when the “Hockeyroos” women’s hockey team took victory at the Atlanta games. Peris’s mother was one of Australia’s so-called Stolen Generation – the aboriginal children separated from their families by the state – and Peris experienced racial abuse herself during her sporting career. After triumphing in hockey, she switched to athletics and took another gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in the 200 metres sprint. Nova Peris talks to Robert Nicholson. The programme is a Whistledown Production.
PHOTO: Nova Peris at the 1996 Olympics (Getty Images)