Olympic gold-medal winning sisters Jessica Fox OAM and Noemie Fox have shared The Don Award at Monday night’s Sport Australia Hall of Fame Inductions & Awards Gala Dinner in Melbourne, where basketball legend Lauren Jackson AO was honoured with The Dawn Award.
For the second consecutive year, women have swept the Sport Australia Hall of Fame’s two most prestigious gongs, after recognition in 2023 of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Matildas and following on from the recognition of the Sydney 2000 Australian Olympic Women’s Water Polo Team.
The fabulous Foxes became the first Australian siblings to claim individual Olympic gold, with Jess prevailing in the K1 and C1 slalom events at the Paris Games and Noemie then adding to the remarkable family tally with success on debut in a new event, the kayak cross.
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Lauren, 43, competed at her fifth and final Olympics in Paris and became the first Australian athlete to win a medal in five Games. The former WNBA superstar leaves an enduring legacy at international level as well as in the WNBL, from which she retired in 2024 as a seven-time champion and four-time MVP.
The Don Award, introduced in 1998 and named for the Sport Australia Hall of Fame’s inaugural Inductee, Sir Donald Bradman AC, honours an Australian athlete or team whose achievements and example over the past 12 months have most inspired the nation.
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The Dawn Award, introduced in 2021 and named after swimming great and SAHOF’s first female Inductee and Legend Dawn Fraser AC MBE, recognises an individual, team or organisation – from this or a previous generation – who show courage and bravery and have changed sport for the better.
The Don Award
Jess Fox won her second and third Olympic gold medals on the whitewater at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, adding the precious K1 crown that had narrowly eluded her at three previous Games to the successful defence of her C1 title from Tokyo.
Expanding her career haul to three gold, one silver and two bronze medals, the 30-year-old Australian Flag Bearer cemented her status as the most decorated Olympic paddler to date.
Yet it was the final race in Paris that added the surprise element to this extraordinary family story. Enter younger sister Noemie.
A decade after first competing internationally, Noemie did not so much emerge from her sister’s long shadow as burst triumphantly into the spotlight with success in the new knockout event, the kayak cross, on her hard-won Olympic debut.
The 27-year-old eliminated Jess in the round stage and overtook then world champion Kimberley Woods in the final to achieve what she had scarcely dared to dream was possible.
The touching sight of an emotional Jess jumping into the water to celebrate her sibling’s unexpected golden moment, combined with the unique nature of what had collectively been achieved by the popular western Sydney sisters, provided some of the most memorable and heartwarming scenes of the Games.
The Dawn Award
This more recent honour recognises athletes, teams or administrators whose stories are less well-known; Lauren Jackson’s, however, is a famous tale of unparalleled excellence and achievement in Australian women’s basketball.
Starting as a gangly 16-year-old WNBL rookie from Albury, NSW, Lauren has only now, 24 years after her national team debut as the youngest-ever Opal, signed off permanently from an international career that spanned not just five Olympic Games (for three silver and two bronze medals) but podium finishes at four World Cups, including a famous triumph in Brazil in 2006.
Having broken her left ankle in early 2023, Lauren had not intended to go to the Paris Games following that bronze send-off at the 2022 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Sydney, when she returned from her injury-enforced 2016 retirement to complete an improbable comeback, aged 40, and dominate the bronze medal play-off against Canada.
Yet with young sons Harry and Lennon in the crowd at Bercy Arena and a reduced role in terms of minutes played (just 20 over the tournament, for six points), Lauren’s leadership and experience as part of the Opals squad again proved vital as the Australians maintained their record of a podium finish at each of the Olympics their power forward/centre has contested since her debut in Sydney in 2000.
Described in her prime as the world’s best female basketballer, and a franchise player for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm over 12 seasons for two championships and three MVP crowns, Lauren extended her fame from the US through Europe and Asia despite the multiple injuries that led to her initial retirement in 2016.
She has now settled back home in Australia, where she continues to represent the Albury West Bandits in NBL1 East, winning the league MVP and helping her local club to the championship in 2024.
Since 2001 Lauren has also worked in a strategic role for Basketball Australia focusing on its Women and Girls Strategy to deliver outcomes in gender equality in basketball.
Lauren is just the fourth recipient of The Dawn Award, following Evonne Goolagong Cawley AC MBE, the late Peter Norman and the Sydney 2000 Olympics Women’s Water Polo champions.
The 2024 Sport Australia Hall of Fame Induction & Awards Gala Dinner also hosted tributes to the newly Elevated Legends Geoff Hunt AM MBE and Michael Milton OAM and the eight Inductees for 2024.
The new Athlete Members are three-time world surfing champion Mick Fanning AO; former Kookaburras’ captain Mark Knowles OAM; lawn bowls trailblazer Karen Murphy AM; Olympic hurdles gold medallist Sally Pearson OAM; motor sport superstar Mark Skaife OAM; and dual-sport Paralympics champion Liesl Tesch AM.
