Alix Louise Sauvage, OAM (born 18 September 1973) is an Australian paralympic wheelchair racer and leading coach.
Sauvage is often regarded as the most renowned disabled sportswoman in Australia. She won nine gold and four silver medals at four Paralympic Games and eleven gold and two silver medals at three IPC Athletics World Championships. She has won four Boston Marathons, and held world records in the 1500 m, 5000 m and 4x100 m and 4x400 m relays. She was Australian Female Athlete of the Year in 1999, and International Female Wheelchair Athlete of the Year in 1999 and 2000. In 2002, her autobiography Louise Sauvage: My Story was published.
Early life
Sauvage was born in 1973 in Perth, Western Australia, the daughter of Rita (née Rigden) and Maurice Sauvage. Her mother was a Ten Pound Pom from Leicestershire, England, while her father was born in the British colony of Seychelles. She was born with a severe congenital spinal condition called myelomeningocele, which inhibits the function of the lower half of the body, giving limited control over the legs. In 1976 she was Perth's Telethon Child as part of a Channel 7 fund-raiser for children with disabilities. Her myelomeningocele required her to have 21 surgical operations by the time she was ten years old. and at 14, she had surgery to fix a curvature in her spine, Sauvage started to compete in wheelchair sport at the age of eight. Before that time, she had attempted to play school sport with her classmates but her disability made it difficult.
In 1990, Sauvage competed in her first international competition in Assen, Holland, where she won gold in the 100 m setting a new world record. She also won the 200 m race but was disqualified for moving out of her lane. At the Stoke Mandeville Games in England the same year, Sauvage took gold in the 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, and two relays.
Paralympic Games
right|thumb|Australian athlete Louise Sauvage races at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games
Before the start of the 1992 Summer Paralympics, Sauvage held Australian records for the 100 m, 200 m, 800 m, 1500 m and marathon in women's wheelchair racing events. She was being marketed by the Australian Paralympic Federation as Australia's top female wheelchair road racer. At the Barcelona Paralympic Games, she won gold medals in the 100 m, 200 m and 400 m and a silver in the 800 m TW4 events and finished sixth in Marathon TW3-4. Sauvage was in danger of not going to the 1992 Paralympics because of funding issues for the Australian Paralympic Federation. The Federation made an emergency appeal for funding from the public in order to cover the cost of transporting the Australian team to Barcelona. The Federation found funding through a variety of small donations that allowed Sauvage and other Australian athletes to compete.
At the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games, she won four gold medals - 400 m (T53), 800 m (T53), 1500 m (T52-53) and 1500 m (T52-53) and finished fourth in Marathon (T52-53). At her final Paralympics in Sydney, 2000, she won two gold medals - 1500 m and 5000 m T54 events and silver medal in 800 m T54.
Road racing
1993 was Sauvage's first year on the international wheelchair racing circuit, competing in the US and Europe. It was also the year that she got her first kneeling wheelchair.
Sauvage won the prestigious Oz Day 10K Wheelchair Road Race ten times – 1993–1999 and 2001–2003.
Demonstration events
From 1993 to 2001, Sauvage won every IAAF wheelchair demonstration event at IAAF World Athletics Championships. In that same period, she also won the demonstration events for wheelchair racing in the 800 metre race at the Olympic games. The 800 metre event does not require that athletes stay in their lanes after the first turn. For this reason, athletes like Sauvage are required to wear helmets when racing. In 2000, Sauvage won the Olympic demonstration event and was expected to win the Paralympic gold. She was upset by Canadian Chantal Petitclerc.