Lisa Llorens
Lisa Christina Llorens, OAM is an Australian Paralympic athlete. She was born in Canberra She specialises in Paralympic high jumping, long jumping and sprinting, in competitions for athletes with autism.
Llorens is known as "The Cheetah" because she had a great affinity with cheetahs. She commented "I feel like I have a connection with the cheetahs, because I'm quite shy, like a cat, and I run so fast." An educational documentary was made about her called Lisa Llorens : a cheetah on the track. From 1998 to 2002, she held an Australian Institute of Sport Athletes with a Disability athletics scholarship.
Llorens competed at the 1996 Summer Paralympics in Atlanta, winning a gold and a bronze in track and field events. She received a Medal of the Order of Australia for her 1996 gold medal. She also represented Australia at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, and won three gold medals in the 200 metre sprint, the high jump, and the long jump, and a silver medal in the 100 metre sprint. She broke the world record three times during her four long jumps.
Llorens also competed at the IPC Athletics World Championships in 1994, winning silver in both the long jump and the 200m and in 1998, winning gold in the 100m, high jump and long jump. She took part in the Paralympic World Cup in 1998, where she won gold in the 100 metre sprint, the high jump and the long jump. In 2004 due to the International Paralympic Committee's decision to remove events for intellectually disabled athletes from its official activities, Llorens retired as she felt that there was nothing left for her to achieve in sport.
The Australian Paralympic Committee describes her as "Australia’s most outstanding female athlete with an intellectual disability", along with Crystal-Lea Adams.
In 1997, she was awarded the Australian Capital Territory Female Sportstar of the Year. and Young Canberra Citizen of the Year. In November 2015, she was inducted into the ACT Sport Hall of Fame. In 2016, Llorens was induced into the International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability Hall of Fame.
