Kathy Sambell ran the second leg of the 4x100m Commonwealth Games gold medal team in 1990. A young Cathy Freeman ran the final leg.
One of Kathy Sambell’s career highlights would surely be running the No. 2 position in the 1990 Commonwealth Games 4x100m relay team in which the great Cathy Freeman ran the final leg.
There are no surprises that in a time of 43.87secs, Australia won the Commonwealth Games gold medal, beating powerful teams, England and Nigeria.
The year before this, Kathy Sambell had claimed the Australian championship title over the 100m.
Marjorie Jackson-Nelson can attest to the fragile nature of relay running at any major international event.
When the baton was knocked from Jackson’s hand by the lifting knee of the runner behind her, another almost-certain Olympic gold medal for Australia was lost.
In 1989, with Sambell running for Oceania in the 4x100m relay at the International World Cup, the Oceania team was disqualified. Years of preparation can be lost in a single moment.
Although she occasionally contested the 400m, Kathy Sambell was a 100m and 200m sprinter, and her specialty appeared to be in relay running.
Four years after Auckland, Sambell and Freeman, along with Melinda Gainsford and Monique Miers, teamed up again at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. This time they were beaten out of the gold by a powerful Nigerian team, winning the silver medal.
The 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona will surely rate as a high point, sharing the track with some of the greatest athletes of all time, and as part of that relay team with Gainsford-Smith, Kerry Johnson and Melissa Moore, the Aussies finished a highly creditable 6th with the mighty USA taking gold.
Kathy Sambell is an inductee to the Athletics SA Hall of Fame.
