Eve Rimmer was one of New Zealand’s greatest paraplegic athletes, winning 32 medals – including 22 gold medals – for athletics and swimming at international sporting events. A household name during the late 1960s and 1970s, she was also an outspoken advocate for the rights of the disabled in sport and society.
Romanian author, translator feminist, painter, scholar and mountaineer
Taglicht’s ideas on the importance of relaxation were advanced for the time. When the Wellington Parents’ Centre was formed in the early 1950s, she was employed to teach pregnant women relaxation and breathing exercises, which many found invaluable during the rigours of childbirth. She tutored aspiring actors in movement and relaxation, working with the New Zealand Drama Council’s annual summer schools over many years and the New Zealand Players during the 1950s. The New Zealand Opera Company also employed her. Her work has been continued and expanded by her followers.
New Zealander Cath Vautier was active in all aspects of netball, serving as coach, manager, umpire, selector (including national selector in 1948), announcer, publicist, delegate to national meetings, and fund-raiser, as well as being responsible for the weekly draw.
Possessed of a powerful forehand drive and a keenly competitive spirit, Kate Nunneley did much to improve the standard of women’s tennis in New Zealand.
By 1912 Sarah Heap was regarded as New Zealand’s leading authority on the physical training of girls.
When she died, the Christchurch Press commented that her ‘grip of facts added to an intimate knowledge of European politics and statesmen…had placed her in the front rank of women journalists’. She also excelled as a woman mountaineer.
After her father’s death in 1943 Lena and her brother Eru continued his work, dealing with numerous issues affecting Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki and Te Whānau-a-Taupara land and the Mangatū blocks. She became one of the first women to chair a Māori block committee (Whaitiri No 2), and served on the East Coast Māori Trust Council.
In 1992, Candace Cable became the first woman to medal at the summer and winter Paralympic Games. During her career, she competed at nine Paralympics and won 12 medals in track and field, alpine skiing, and Nordic skiing. Cable also won 84 marathons, including six Boston Marathon victories.
In 1900, Abbott won the women’s Olympic golf tournament, but she never knew what she had achieved.