Australian netball legend Sharelle McMahon known as out the disparity between males’s and girls’s sporting recognition as “all the time a bit of bit stunning”.
However as she stood subsequent to a statue of herself that can endlessly be part of the Melbourne sporting precinct, unveiled on Worldwide Ladies’s Day, she was proud to be part of the motion bridging the hole.
McMahon, an Australian sporting nice, grew to become simply the fifth sportswoman to obtain a statue in Victoria after her bronze likeness was unveiled on Wednesday.
The 2016 Sporting Australia Corridor of Fame inductee joined Olympians Betty Cuthbert, Shirley Strickland and Nova Peris and AFLW star Tayla Harris as feminine athletes with statues in Victoria.
“I really feel like I’ve been formed immeasurably by the superb girls that I’ve been surrounded with, so thanks to everybody who has had that influence on me,” McMahon mentioned.
“And for me, my household has all the time stored me grounded – I don’t understand how that goes, as you’re standing in entrance of a statue I’m being awarded. It’s a little bit of a surreal feeling.”
McMahon, who captained the Diamonds on 12 events amongst 118 appearances, was additionally the primary lady from a workforce sport to be an Australian flag bearer at a Commonwealth Video games when she was chosen for the honour in Delhi in 2010.
She mentioned the entrance of John Cain Enviornment was a becoming spot for the statue.
“I’ve spent many occasions out on court docket right here, superb recollections of taking part in netball and representing not solely our state however Australia too,” she mentioned.
“John Cain Enviornment will all the time be a venue that’s actually near my coronary heart.”
McMahon was sculpted by artists Gillie and Marc as a part of the worldwide Statues for Equality challenge, which seeks to steadiness gender and racial illustration in public statues.
Victorian Minister for Ladies Natalie Hutchins mentioned considerably extra work needed to be accomplished to recognise the state’s most excellent feminine athletes.
“Sadly in Victoria, we have now solely about 9 statues of ladies and about 500-plus statues of males, canines and horses, and it’s time we equalise that out,” Ms Hutchins mentioned.
“Victorian girls and women know you can’t be what you may’t see.
“I can’t consider anybody higher than Sharelle McMahon to be honouring right here at present.”
McMahon stays an instrumental determine in girls’s sport, main Victoria’s girls’s cricket program after ending an eight-year teaching profession with the Vixens in 2021.
