Stadium Australia Hall of Fame

"There can never have been a minute quite like it,” wrote the Sydney Morning Herald’s Tony Stephens on the night of the women’s 400m track final at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. "So many people — millions at Homebush, in their homes and public places — focused their will and good wishes on a single young woman doing what she loves and does best." 

Ten days earlier, Cathy Freeman had lit the cauldron during the Games’ opening ceremony. Freeman first ran for Australia at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, winning gold in the 4x100m relay. Four years later, she won the 200m and 400m in Victoria, Canada. In 1996, she earned silver behind France’s Marié-Jose Pérec in the 400m at the Atlanta Olympics. Freeman was named Australian of the Year in 1998 after becoming 400m world champion, and then a series of dominant performances made her a pronounced favourite for her home Olympics. That status, of course, brought huge pressure; the  manner in which she handled the nation’s expectations is part of her legend. Freeman was also seventh in the 200m final and ran a dazzling anchor leg as Australia finished sixth in the 4x400m relay. 

In 2023, the eastern grandstand at Accor Stadium was officially named the Cathy Freeman Stand

Louise Sauvage took up wheelchair racing at age 15, launching a career that saw her become one of the world’s greatest para-athletes. She won her first world title in 1990, when she was also awarded a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport. 

Two years later at the Barcelona Paralympics, Sauvage won over distances of 100m, 200m and 400m, and finished second in the 800m and sixth in the marathon. Through the ’90s, she enjoyed success at world championships, major marathons and the 1996 Paralympics, and was Australian Paralympian of the Year four times. I

In 2000, she was named World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability at the inaugural Laureus Sports Awards and carried the Olympic flame across the Harbour Bridge during the torch relay for the Sydney Olympics. She then won an 800m demonstration race at the Sydney Olympics — when the crowd noise with 150m to go, she said, was ‘just deafening’ — lit the cauldron during the Paralympics opening ceremony and won gold over 1500m and 5000m and silver in the 800m. Sauvage’s last Paralympics were in Athens in 2004, when she carried the Australian flag at the opening ceremony and earned two silver medals.  

Tim Sullivan was one of Australia’s greatest para-athletes of the early 21st century. He represented Australia on the track at four Paralympic Games from 2000 to 2012, winning 10 gold medals. Only Matt Cowdrey, who claimed 13 golds in para-swimming from 2004 to 2012, has won more. 

The first five of Sullivan’s Paralympic golds were won in Sydney, in the T38 100m, T38 200m, T38 400m, T38 4x400m relay and T38 4x100m relay, all in world record time. ‘When Sullivan was called up to the podium to accept his gold medal, it was as if there had never been a prouder, happier Australian,’ wrote journalist Caroline Overington after the 200m. ‘There were 50,000 people, perhaps more cheering for him. Sullivan’s expression was one of pure, unadulterated joy.’ 

After the Games he was named the Male Athlete of the Year by the Australian Paralympic Committee. Sullivan would win four more golds in Athens in 2004 and one in Beijing in 2008. ‘What keeps him going is he loves to run, he loves to race people, he's a passionate runner who loves to win,’ his coach Brett Jones said. Sullivan was also a multiple winner at world championships, claiming four golds in 2002 and five in 2006. 

Seventeen-year-old Ian Thorpe won Australia’s first gold medal of the Sydney 2000 Olympics when he broke the world record in the men’s 400m freestyle final at the Sydney Aquatic Centre. Later that same evening, Thorpe anchored our 4x100m freestyle relay to a memorable victory over the United States, the first time the Americans were beaten in that Olympic event. 

The US’s brilliant sprinter, Gary Hall junior, had predicted that ‘we will smash them like guitars’, which prompted the rest of the Aussie line-up — Michael Klim (who broke the 100m world record in the first leg of the final), Chris Fydler and Ashley Callus — to form a ‘air-guitar trio’ after Thorpe raced past Hall as the crowd went wild during the final lap. ‘I doff my hat to the great Ian Thorpe,’ Hall told the world’s media. ‘He swam better than I did.’ 

Thorpe would earn a silver in the 200m freestyle, gold in the 4x200m relay, carry the Australian flag in the Olympic Stadium during the Games’ closing ceremony, and go on to win another three gold medals in the 2004 Olympics. He would also set 13 individual world records during his stellar career and win 11 world championship and 10 Commonwealth Games gold medals. 

John Eales was a colossus in the Australian rugby teams that won the World Cup in 1991 and 1999, renowned for his supremacy in the lineout, inspiring leadership of Queensland and Australia, and outstanding goalkicking. Eales was Australian captain from 1996 to 2001, leading his team to victory over New Zealand in 1998 and helping to ensure the retention of the Bledisloe Cup until his retirement. 

A serious shoulder injury in 1999 kept Eales out of the Wallabies’ first Tests at Stadium Australia — the ‘Centenary Test’ against England and a 28–7 trouncing of the All Blacks — but he returned in 2000 to star in some famous games at the ground. On 15 July, a crowd of 109,874 saw the All Blacks race to a 24–0 lead, but Australia fought back to even the scores before halftime and lead 35–34 with six minutes left, only to lose 39–35 to a late Jonah Lomu try. 

In 2001, Eales drove the Wallabies to a dramatic 29–23 victory over the British and Irish Lions and then, in his farewell Test, was prominent against New Zealand when No. 8 Toutai Kefu’s try in the final 90 seconds clinched the Tri-Nations title for the second consecutive year. 

Jonny Wilkinson first appeared at Stadium Australia in 1999, as England’s fly half in the ‘Centenary Test’ against the Wallabies. He played in all three Tests on the Lions’ tour of Australia in 2001, when his 18 points (a try, two conversions, three penalties) in a 29–23 loss in the deciding Test in Sydney was a Lions record. In Melbourne in June 2003, Wilkinson starred in England’s first ever Test victory on Australian soil. 

Four months later, as the youngest member of England’s World Cup squad, he scored all his team’s points in a 24–7 semi-final victory over France at the Olympic Stadium and then kicked four penalties, gave the final pass for England’s only try, and landed the decisive drop goal in the last minute of extra time with his slightly weaker right foot in a thrilling 20–17 win over Australia in the final. It was the first time a team from the northern hemisphere had won the World Cup. Wilkinson was the tournament's leading points scorer, was voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and named the IRB International Player of the Year. 

Four years later, he kicked all of England’s points in a 12–10 quarter-final win over the Wallabies in the World Cup in France, and three years later, back again at the Stadium, he kicked the winning penalty in a 21–20 Test win.  

Brad Fittler played 336 premiership matches from 1989 to 2004: 119 for Penrith and 217 for the Sydney Roosters. He won premierships at both clubs, for the Panthers in 1991 and the Roosters in 2002, appeared in 31 State of Origin matches for NSW, first playing as an 18-year-old in 1990, and in 40 Tests. He won the Golden Boot as the world’s best player in 2000 and captained his country 25 times, including in the first rugby league Test staged at the Stadium: the Anzac Test of 1999, won by Australia 20–14. 

Fittler was also NSW skipper for the first Origin match at the venue, a 12–8 home win in 1999. He would lead his state to further victories in 2000 (twice, the second by 56–16) and 2001, and then return in his final season, 2004, to inspire another famous Blues triumph. Fittler was Roosters captain in four of the first six NRL Grand Finals played at the Stadium (2000, 2002–2004). 

His kick to set up a try for winger Chris Walker against Canterbury in his final appearance was masterful. ‘Mate, you’re a legend,’ said the Bulldogs’ Andrew Ryan of his opposing skipper. ‘It's an honour to play against you and play with you over these years.’ 

Andrew Johns was in the Newcastle team that defeated Manly 41–18 in the first NRL game played at Stadium Australia, on 6 March 1999, scoring a try, six goals and a field goal. Later that season, he played in the first Test and first Origin game staged at the venue. By this time, Johns was recognised as one of the best halfbacks in the premiership, having led the Knights to grand final glory in 1997. 

Over the next seven seasons, he produced so many brilliant efforts, several of them at Stadium Australia, that in 2012 he was named the game’s eighth Immortal. Johns won three Dally M medals, awarded to the NRL’s best player (1998, 1999 and 2002), the Clive Churchill Medal in 2001 (when he led Newcastle to a 30–24 win over favourites Parramatta in the grand final), two Golden Boots as the best player in the world, and four State of Origin player-of-the-match awards (three of them won at the Stadium). He suffered a broken jaw early in 2005, but was back for Origin II in Sydney and was involved in all five NSW tries in a 32–22 win. A neck injury forced his retirement early in 2007. 

Twelve months later, Johns was named the halfback in Australian rugby league’s Team of the Century. 

John Aloisi played top level football in Australia, Belgium, Italy, England and Spain, and scored 27 goals in 55 full internationals from 1997 to 2008, including one in the Socceroos’ 3–1 win over Japan at the 2006 World Cup finals. 

However, Aloisi is best remembered for the goal he so coolly scored on 16 November 2005 that won a penalty shootout against Uruguay and took Australia to the World Cup finals for the first time since 1974. ‘We’ve been dreaming of this for 32 years,’ said Aloisi. ‘You couldn't ask for a better finish.’ After the ball hit the back of the net, the hero of the hour raced away, swinging his shirt in the air as his jubilant teammates chased after him. It was well past 11pm, but it took a long time for the fans to leave, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they’d just experienced. 

Aloisi first played at the Stadium in 1999, for a Socceroos XI against an ‘All Stars’ team that included names such as Germany’s Juergen Klinsmann and Italy’s Australian-born striker Christian Vieri. Two years later, he scored a goal at the same venue when Australia beat New Zealand 4–1 in a World Cup qualifying match. He returned to Australia at the end of his career, to play and coach in the A-League. 

The enduring memory of John Aloisi wildly celebrating his winning penalty against Uruguay in 2005 is locked solid in the minds of all Australian sports fans. One of Aloisi’s teammates chasing him in that joyful dash was goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, but perhaps Schwarzer should have been at the centre of the celebrations. After all, he had brilliantly saved two shots during the tense shootout — from Dario Rodriguez and Marcelo Zalayeta — having performed superbly in both legs, especially in the Socceroos’ 1–0 loss in the game in Montevideo. 

A product of western Sydney, Schwarzer played 109 full internationals from 1993 to 2013, including matches at the 2006 and 2010 World Cup finals. He played at the top level in Australia, Germany and England, including 507 games in the Premier League (easily the most by an Australian). 

Among his matches at Stadium Australia were a 2–1 defeat of Iraq in 2005 (on the same day the Matildas made their Stadium debut against Japan in a double header), a World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan in 2009, when goals by Josh Kennedy and Harry Kewell put the Socceroos on the brink of qualifying for the 2010 finals, and World Cup qualifiers against Oman (2–2) and Iraq (1–0) in 2013 that put Australia on the brink of a third straight finals appearance.