Full name Tracey Nicole Cross Nationality Australia | Name Tracey Cross | |
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Born 4 December 1972 Bunbury, Western Australia | ||
Tracey Nicole Cross, OAM (born 4 December 1972) is an Australian visually impaired swimmer. She won ten medals at three Paralympics, from 1992 to 2000.
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Personal
Cross was born in the Western Australian city of Bunbury on 4 December 1972. She has been blind since birth; in a 2000 interview, she said that the light perception that she had in one eye was "almost useless". She was left out of sporting activities at school, and started swimming at the age of 15. She took the sport casually at first, but took it more seriously when she found that she had a natural aptitude for swimming.
In 1994, she obtained a law degree from Murdoch University. After working in that field for some years, she became a massage therapist; she works in a natural health clinic in West Perth.
Swimming career
Cross won her first international gold medal in the women's 400 m Freestyle B1 at the 1990 World Championships and Games for the Disabled in Assen, Netherlands.
At the 1992 Barcelona Games, she won two gold medals in the Women's 100 m Freestyle B1 and Women's 400 m Freestyle B1 events, for which she won a Medal of the Order of Australia, and two silver medals in the Women's 100 m Backstroke B1 and Women's 200 m Medley B1 events; she also came fourth in both the Women's 100 m Butterfly B1 and Women's 50 m Freestyle B1 events. In 1993, she received the Western Australian Citizen of the Year Award in the Youth category.
She won two gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Games in the Women's 100 m Butterfly B1 and the Women's 200 m Medley B1 events, and a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle B1 event; she also came fifth in the Women's 100 m Backstroke B1 event and came seventh in the heats of the Women's 400 m Freestyle B2 event.
She spoke the Paralympic oath at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Paralympics. In the competition, she received two silver medals in the Women's 100 m Freestyle S11 and the Women's 400 m Freestyle S11 events, and a bronze medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle S11 event; she also came fifth in the Women's 200 m Medley SM11 event and eighth in the Women's 100 m Backstroke S11 event.
On 14 November 2000, she received an Australian Sports Medal "For Service to Sport as a gold Medallist at the Paralympic Games". She received a Centenary Medal on 1 January 2001 "For service to the community through Paralympic swimming".