Simon Fairweather
Encyclopedia
Simon John Fairweather, OAM
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(born 9 October 1969) is an archer
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
born in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, South Australia. He is 175 centimetres tall and weighs 71 kilograms.
Fairweather won the individual gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
at the World Championships in Poland in 1991.
Fairweather was declared the Young Australian of the Year in 1991.
After an early Olympic career in which he was generally considered not to have lived up to his promise, Fairweather shot back into Australia's national consciousness, "stopping the nation" with his gold medal performance in men's individual archery at the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
. He was also a member of the Australian team which finished twelfth in the team competition
Archery at the 2000 Summer Olympics - Men's team
The men's team was an archery event held as part of the archery at the 2000 Summer Olympics programme.A total of 14 teams competed in the third appearance of the Olympic team round archery event. The ranking round, which determined the seeds for all teams, doubled as the ranking round for the...
.
Simon went to 5 Olympic Games: 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004. He has won countless Australia titles over a 20 year period.
In 1997 Fairweather gained a degree in jewellery design from the University of South Australia
University of South Australia
The University of South Australia is a public university in the Australian state of South Australia. It was formed in 1991 with the merger of the South Australian Institute of Technology and Colleges of Advanced Education. It is the largest university in South Australia, with more than 36,000...
.
On the 1st of February 2009, Archery Australia announced the appointment of Fairweather as National Head Coach of Archery in Australia.
Fairweather is married to former triathlon
Triathlon
A triathlon is a multi-sport event involving the completion of three continuous and sequential endurance events. While many variations of the sport exist, triathlon, in its most popular form, involves swimming, cycling, and running in immediate succession over various distances...
world champion Jackie Fairweather (née Gallagher).