Cathy Freeman

📍Slade Point, Mackay, QLD 4740, Australia

“Cathy Freeman grew up at Slade Point, on the coast at Mackay in tropical North Queensland, the daughter of a Birri Gubba father and a Kuku Yalanji mother. She ran everywhere as a child — across football ovals, on sawdust tracks, along the sandy riverbanks — racing her three brothers and almost always winning. At eight she joined the little Slade Point athletics club. Her stepfather Bruce Barber, a railways worker, spotted her gift and used his free rail pass to take her across the vast state to compete. Growing up proud of her Aboriginal heritage in a close, sporting family gave Freeman the grounding and the fire she would one day carry into Olympic history.”

Sources: Wikipedia: Cathy Freeman