1975 -

Natalie Cook is the only athlete to have competed in all four of the Olympic women’s beach volleyball tournament since the sport was introduced in Atlanta in 1996. She is also the only competitor (male or female) to have reached the medal matches in each of the first three Olympic contests. Cook, a gold and bronze Olympic medallist, studied medicine briefly, but gave it up in 1993 to concentrate on beach volleyball. She had captained the Australian indoor junior team in 1992 before switching to the sandy game.

With Kerri Pottharst as her partner, she represented Australia at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and won a bronze medal. That year the pair won a silver medal at the world championships, and came first in the World Tour event in Japan. They split up for a time, trying out with other partners, but re-formed a year before the Sydney 2000 Olympics. They employed a full-time coach, even took on a “success” coach who convinced them to walk over burning coals. Something worked: in the Sydney final, on Bondi beach, they beat the number one-ranked pair in the world, Brazil’s Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede.

After the Games Pottharst retired, and Cook found a new partner in Nicole Sanderson. They won bronze at the 2003 world titles, then reached the semi-final round at the Athens 2004 Games --- finally going down to the US. For the 2008 Games in Beijing, Cook teamed up with Tamsin Barnett, who had been a member of the 2000 indoor volleyball team. They lost to Brazil in a quarter-final.      

Harry Gordon, AOC Historian