Louise Bawden (born 7 August 1981) is an Australian

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

and

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...

player. She represented Australia at the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

in indoor volleyball, finishing in 9th. She was selected to represent

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

at the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

in beach volleyball, but she and team-mate

Becchara Palmer Becchara Palmer (born 18 June 1988) is an Australian female beach volleyball player. She represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the beach volleyball women's tournament. Personal Palmer was born in Adelaide, and is from South Aus ...

did not qualify from the pool stage.

Personal

Bawden was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Victoria and attended

Fintona Girls' School Fintona Girls' School is a small, independent, non-denominational, day school for girls, located in Balwyn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1896, Fintona is a non-selective school and currently caters for approximately 600 stud ...

. She spent her childhood in Melbourne, moving to Canberra when she was sixteen. She then moved to the Netherlands after the Sydney Olympics, returning to Australia in 2003. In 2008, she completed a degree at a university in Queensland. She attended the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

as a fan. , she lives in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

. Bawden is tall and weighs .

Indoor volleyball

Bawden earned a volleyball scholarship at the

Australian Institute of Sport The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The Institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the ...

when she was sixteen years old. As a nineteen-year-old, she represented Australia at the

in indoor volleyball, where her team finished ninth. Following the Sydney Games, she played professional volleyball in the Netherlands until 2003. In 2002, she competed in the World Championships.

Beach volleyball

Bawden is a beach volleyball player. Following the 2008 Summer Olympics, she approached the Adelaide-based Australian beach volley programme about the possibility of getting into the sport. Following this, in 2009, she became involved with Australia's National Beach Volleyball Program, making a switch from indoor to beach and was initially teamed up with

. That year, she shared the world beach volleyball association top rookie award with

Angie Akers Angela Marie "Angie" Akers (née Harris; born June 30, 1976) is a retired professional beach volleyball player from the United States who played on the Association of Volleyball Professionals, AVP Tour. Akers was named the AVP Rookie of the Yea ...

, an American. At the 2009 Mazury Open in Stare Jablonki, Poland, Bawden and partner Palmer finished second. The competition was part of the FIVB World Tour. She and Palmer twice won the Australian Championships, once in 2010 and again in 2011. In 2011, Palmer and Bawden were Australia's number one ranked team, and the duo finished ninth at the 2011 World Championships. With her partner Palmer, she finished seventeenth at the 2011 FIVB Moscow World Tour in Moscow, Russia. With her partner, she finished fourth at the 2011 FIVB Phuket World Tour in Phuket, Thailand. In 2012, Bawden and Palmer played in 31 matches, winning 20 of them. This increased their world ranking to 16. With her partner, she finished ninth at the 2012 FIVB Brasília World Tour in Brasília, Brazil. With her partner, she finished fifth at the 2012 FIVB Sanya World Tour in Sanya, China. With her partner, she finished seventeenth at the 2012 FIVB Shanghai World Tour in Shanghai, China. With her partner, she finished ninth at the 2012 FIVB Beijing World Tour in Beijing, China. With her partner, she finished ninth at the 2012 FIVB Rome World Tour in Rome, Italy, which secured her Olympic berth. With her partner, she finished fifth at the 2012 FIVB Moscow World Tour in Moscow, Russia. Bawden was selected to represent

at the

in beach volleyball, in June 2012 following a selection process that was 18 months long and involved becoming one of the sixteen top ranked teams in the world. Going into the Olympics, her team was ranked fourteenth in the world, but did not qualify from the pool stages. She participated in the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio with partner

Taliqua Clancy Taliqua Clancy (born 25 June 1992) is an Australian volleyball and beach volleyball player who represented Australia at the 2016 Summer Olympics in beach volleyball, partnered with Louise Bawden. She is the first Indigenous Australian volleybal ...

, and made it to the Quarter-finals.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bawden, Louise 1981 births Living people Australian women's volleyball players Australian women's beach volleyball players Volleyball players at the 2000 Summer Olympics Beach volleyball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic volleyball players for Australia Olympic beach volleyball players for Australia Beach volleyball players at the 2016 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Melbourne Sportswomen from Victoria (state) Australian Institute of Sport alumni