Aussie sporting legend is hit by a family tragedy just hours before finding out she received one of the country’s highest honours

Lawn Bowls great Karen Murphy was elated after recently being elevated to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, but it was a day that was also steeped in tragedy on a personal level.

Murphy received a call from hunting legend and Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman John Bertrand to inform her of the coveted honor – just hours after her mother Lorraine passed away.

‘My mother had had brain cancer and I had been caring for her for a few years and she passed away at 5.57am that day. Then John called me around 11 a.m. and told me, and I burst into tears,” she said. News Corp.

‘I was very honored when I heard the news: it is truly special to be part of such a wonderful list of athletes from all sports.

‘I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has been on this journey with me. I share this award with our entire bowls community.”

Murphy is a two-time world singles champion and 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medalist – and is widely regarded as one of the sport’s greatest ever female bowlers.

She joins Olympic gold medalist Sally Pearson and surfing legend Mick Fanning as co-recipients of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

Other 2024 nominees include motorsport great Mark Skaife, former Kookaburras hockey captain Mark Knowles and dual-sport Paralympics champion Liesl Tesch.

Murphy received a call from Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman John Bertrand just hours after her mother Lorraine (pictured left with Murphy) passed away

Pearson is one of only nine Australian women to ever win an Olympic gold medal in athletics, bringing her gold in London in 2012 and silver in 2008 in the 100m hurdles, as well as World Cup success in 2011 and 2017 as two Commonwealth Games titles.

Pearson, the first Australian to be named World Athlete of the Year and a two-time winner of SAHOF’s ‘The Don’ Award, said it was “surreal” to be included in such esteemed company, including people as Cathy Freeman, a childhood hero.

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in.” It’s so surreal. It feels like it just happens to people you see on TV,” she said.

‘I still feel like I’m watching the Sydney Olympics and seeing Cathy Freeman running. When Steve Hooker won gold in Beijing I sat on the sidelines.

‘Even though I won silver, I thought: this is really cool. I look at this person, this athlete, just doing amazing things. It’s a bizarre feeling that I’m now one of those people.’

Fanning joins as a three-time world champion as part of an illustrious surfing career headlined by his own encounter with a shark in J-Bay in South Africa in 2015.

Despite the shock incident, Fanning returned to the same ocean the following year and scored a famous victory to etch his name in Australian sporting folklore.

Fanning is already a member of the World Surfers’ Hall of Fame and the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame and said he was quite ‘flabbergasted’ when he heard he had been inducted into the SAHOF.

Sally Pearson (pictured, gold medalist in the women’s 100m hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics) also received Hall of Fame honors

Surfer Mick Fanning (pictured shortly before he was attacked by a shark in South Africa in 2015) is another inductee

“Australia produces so many incredible sporting stars and to be honored as one of those greats honestly blows my mind,” he said.

“It’s not something we ever look for when we play our sport, but it’s very special to be recognized later in life and I’m very honored to be able to share it with people who have supported me.

“I wasn’t the most talented person, I wasn’t the most gifted, I didn’t have the most money or anything like that, but I just gave it my all.”

Skaife was one of the most successful drivers in Australian motorsport, winning the Bathurst 1000 six times between 1991 and 2010 with five touring car titles, including a stunning hat-trick of V8 Supercars championship titles from 2002 to 2004.

Four-time Olympian Knowles was the youngest member of the Kookaburras team that ended decades of Olympic sorrow by winning gold in Athens in 2004.

He won bronze medals at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, along with two World Cups, four championship trophies and four gold medals at the Commonwealth Games before retiring in 2018 after more than 300 international caps.