Petria Thomas OAM

Official Ambassador for the 2008 Pacific School Games

Profile

Olympic Gold Medallist, Petria Thomas, is one of Australia's most successful female swimmers. In 1994 she won two gold medals in the 100 m butterfly and the 4 x 100m medley relay in the Commonwealth Games; and a silver medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, followed by another two golds and one silver at the1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics she won three medals – a bronze in the 200m butterfly, silver in the 4 x 100 m medley and silver in the 4 x 200 m freestyle.

 

The 2002 Commonwealth Games saw her scooping the medal pools when she won five gold, one silver and one bronze medal making her the first female swimmer ever to win the same event - the 100 m butterfly - at three consecutive Commonwealth Games. As well as winning individual gold in the 100m butterfly and silver in the 200m butterfly at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, she was part of two world record setting and gold medal winning teams in the 4x100 m freestyle and the 4 x 100 m medley relays.

Petria cites her career highlights as being her 8 Olympic medals, including 3 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze; and 9 Commonwealth Games gold medals. Managing to maintain persistence, determination and belief in herself to overcome many setbacks, such as 3 shoulder and 1 ankle reconstruction, are areas of her career success she is also proud of as she outlined in her recently released autobiography Swimming Against the Tide. Carrying the Australian Flag at the Olympic Closing Ceremony in Athens in 2004 was another career highlight.

Befitting her enormous swimming success, Petria was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport Swimming Hall of Fame in 1996, crowned AIS Athlete of the Year in 2001, 2002 and 2004 and honoured with the Australian Sports Medal in 2000, the Centenary Medal in 2001 and an Order of Australia medal in 2005.

Although no longer involved in professional swimming – she retired after her magnificent successes at the 2004 Athens Olympics – Petria is extremely busy working as a Sports Consultant at the Australian Sports Commission in Canberra and spending time with her husband and one-year old son. She still occasionally goes for a “paddle” and also enjoys playing basketball and is concentrating her efforts on being “as successful and as happy as I can!”

Petria’s advice to young and upcoming athletes is to enjoy whatever they do in life in order to get the best out of themselves.  “Set yourself meaningful goals to achieve and never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it - nothing really worthwhile in life comes without a lot of hard work.”