Motions

Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games

The Hon. T.T. NGO (17:22): I move:

That this council wishes all Australian athletes every success in competing in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio and, in particular, the South Australian athletes.

The 2016 Olympic Games will be hosted in the city of Rio de Janeiro from 5 August to 21 August, with the Paralympic Games taking place from 7 September to 18 September. Getting to the Olympic or Paralympic Games is no mean feat. It requires plenty of hard work, determination and perseverance. A number of athletes work extremely hard, yet never make it to the Olympic Village. It is something, I dare say, that many members of this chamber could never dream of doing. However, I am an avid spectator and will try to watch as much of the games as I can.

Our Australian Olympic and Paralympic teams are made up of a number of talented athletes. In total, our Olympic team consists of 410 athletes who will compete in 26 sports. This is the fifth largest Australian team. Astonishingly, 262 of the athletes are rookies. It has been touted a young team, with 42 per cent of the team under the age of 25. The team also has the highest proportion of women on a summer Olympic team, as 49.51 per cent of the athletes are women. Seven athletes on the team are Indigenous.

There will be 169 athletes on our Paralympic team, including sighted pilots and guides for vision-impaired athletes. Around 49 per cent will be competing at their first games, and around 39 per cent of the team are women. There are two Indigenous athletes on our Paralympic team. South Australia is certainly brimming with athletic talent, with 46 athletes—who are either from or train in South Australia—competing in 13 sports in the Olympics and six athletes competing in the Paralympics.

It would be easy just to focus on Olympic sports where Australia has a good chance of winning medals or high-profile athletes. Cycling certainly fits both of these categories, with a number of gold medal hopefuls, including Anna Meares, who will be our flag-bearer in Rio. I congratulate Anna for this achievement. However, I would like to focus on athletes who work just as hard, but compete in sports that do not usually get a lot of attention.

Firstly, I want to talk about two athletes from our table tennis team, Jian Fang Lay and Melissa Tapper. Jian will compete at her fifth Olympic Games in Rio, putting her on par with beach volleyball player, Nat Cook, for the most Olympics that an Australian female athlete has competed in. Jian will also be the oldest table tennis player at this year's games at the age of 43. Jian was born in Wenzhou, China, and moved to Australia in 1994 and actually retired from the sport shortly after she arrived. Thankfully for the Australian team, her retirement was short-lived. She went on to compete at her first Olympics in 2000.

Jian Fang Lay's teammate, Melissa Tapper, will also make history as she will be the first Australian to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics. Melissa was born with brachial plexus, the nerves between her right shoulder and arm were torn. Melissa first competed at the Paralympics in London in 2012 and will compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics in Rio—an amazing achievement.

In golf, Su Oh will be one of Australia's first golfers at the Olympics. Su, who is 20 years old, was born in South Korea and moved to Victoria with her family when she was eight years old. At 12, she qualified for the Women's Australian Open, the youngest ever to do so. On her selection to the Olympic team, Su stated:

When my parents brought my big sister, my little brother and me to Australia… I didn't even play golf. They could never in their wildest dreams have imagined one of us would represent Australia in the Olympic Games.

People often say that, with my lack of height, maybe I could train to be a weightlifter. I have not followed this advice, but am in awe of weightlifters, including Simplice Ribouem. Simplice is not only inspirational because of his weightlifting ability but also because of the great adversity he has overcome to make it to Rio.

Simplice was born in Cameroon and competed for his birth country in the 2006 Commonwealth Games before he sought asylum in Australia. He then went on to win gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games for Australia and silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. In 2015, Simplice suffered from malaria for most of the year and did not lift close to full fitness until December at the Australian Open. Despite a lack of preparation, Simplice emerged as a frontrunner for Olympic selection when he lifted five kilograms higher than the Rio qualifier of 346 kilograms for the 94 kilogram division at the Open.

Simplice lives in an apartment in Melbourne with his wife and two sons, Samuel and Nathan. He said that after he failed to return to Cameroon, the country's government had persecuted his family, and with his father's passing last year, he fears for his mother's safety. He said:

I have rented her a place very far away from the city to keep her safe. I pay her money every month to stay there quietly and send them (the family) money to survive. The way they treat my family over there is not good.

Many migrants and refugees living in Australia can relate to Simplice's latter sentiment, that is, working hard to save every dollar and supporting their family back in their former home.

I would now like to shine the spotlight on one of Australia's many talented Paralympians, Ahmed Kelly. Ahmed was born in 1991 in Iraq with significant disabilities in his arms and legs. Until the age of seven he lived in an orphanage but in 1998 the now well-known humanitarian Moira Kelly brought Ahmed and his brother Emmanuelle (also born with limb deficiencies) to Australia for medical treatment. Ahmed underwent surgery to remove the deformed section of his lower legs and had to learn to walk again with prosthetics.

Ahmed's determination can be best summed up by his response to people who tell him he cannot do something. He says, 'If they do that, I love to prove them wrong.' Ahmed counts his family, including his adoptive mother Moira Kelly and adoptive sisters Trishna and Krishna as his inspiration. He has stated that their support 'just pushes you a couple of metres forward in a race'. Rio will be Ahmed's second Paralympics. Ahmed is hoping to better his London 2012 performance where he just missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the 50-metre breaststroke.

These are the stories not just of athletes but of human beings who also have feelings and emotions. They put it all on the line once every four years. How many people can relate to this—the times in our lives where we are expected to deliver on expectations laid down by ourselves, our families and our society?

While much focus will be on the amount of medals won at these Olympics I, just like millions of Australians, will be more captivated by the stories that many of our athletes will bring to Rio for the world to see. I wish them all the very best of luck for the games in Rio. I commend this to the chamber.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.