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E-mail Xinhua, October 25, 2024
SYDNEY, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Former surfing world champion Mick Fanning on Friday described his induction into the Hall of Fame for Australian sport as a huge honor.
Fanning, the World Surf League (WSL) champion in 2007, 2009 and 2013, was among eight former athletes and administrators who were on Thursday announced as the Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees for 2024.
"A huge honor to be recognized with Australian sporting greats. We have such a deep talent pool of sporting heroes, who are my heroes, so to be put in that circle I'm totally over the moon," Fanning, who was infamously attacked by a shark mid-competition in 2015, told Australia's Nine Network television.
He would officially be admitted into the hall of fame at an event in November alongside fellow former athletes Sally Pearson - an Olympic gold medallist in 2012 - motorsports driver Mark Skaife, former national men's hockey captain Mark Knowles, four-time lawn bowls world champion Karen Murphy and Paralympian Liesl Tesch.
Former basketball administrator Betty Watson will be inducted posthumously, joining businessman and administrator Gerry Ryan as non-athlete general members.
Pearson in 2012 became the ninth Australian woman to ever take a track and field Olympic gold medal when she won the 100m hurdles. As well as her Olympic title, Pearson won silver in Beijing 2008 and two world championship gold medals in 2011 and 2017.
"I don't think it really has sunk in. It's so surreal. It feels like it just happens to people you see on TV. I still feel like that little kid watching these amazing athletes on TV," she said on Thursday.
Two existing members of the hall of fame will be elevated to the status of Legends of Australian Sport at the ceremony in Melbourne on November 18 and the Don Award - the most prestigious honor in Australian sport - will be awarded to the athlete or team that most inspired Australians in 2024.
Pearson is one of three people to have won the award multiple times.
The Sport Australia Hall of Fame is housed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and is supported by the Australian Sports Commission - the government agency responsible for supporting and investing in sport. Enditem
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