Simon John Fairweather, OAM (born 9 October 1969) is an

archer Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

born 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 ...

, South Australia. He is tall and weighs . Fairweather won the individual gold medal at the World Championships in Poland in 1991. Fairweather was declared the

Young Australian of the Year The Australian of the Year is a national award conferred on an Australian citizen by the National Australia Day Council, a not-for-profit Australian Governmentowned social enterprise. Similar awards are also conferred at the State and Territ ...

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 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 ...

. He was also a member of the Australian team which finished twelfth in the team competition. Simon went to 5 Olympic Games:

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

, 1992, 1996,

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

, 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 The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...

. In 2002, Fairweather was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport Best of the Best. Fairweather was inducted into the

Sport Australia Hall of Fame The Sport Australia Hall of Fame was established on 10 December 1985 to recognise the achievements of Australian sportsmen and sportswomen. The inaugural induction included 120 members with Sir Don Bradman as the first inductee and Dawn Fraser th ...

in 2009. On 1 February 2009,

Archery Australia Archery Australia (AA) is the governing body for the sport of archery in Australia. History The body was founded in Sydney on 17–18 January 1948 as the Archery Association of Australia. In 1993, the body took its current name of Archery Aust ...

announced the appointment of Fairweather as National Head Coach of Archery in Australia. Fairweather was married to former

triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between the ...

world champion

Jackie Fairweather Jacquilyn Louise "Jackie" Fairweather (née Gallagher; 10 November 1967 1 November 2014) was an Australian world champion triathlete, long-distance runner, coach and Australian Institute of Sport high-performance administrator. Personal lif ...

(née Gallagher) until she committed suicide on 2 November 2014.

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* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fairweather, Simon 1969 births Living people Australian male archers Olympic archers of Australia Archers at the 1988 Summer Olympics Archers at the 1992 Summer Olympics Archers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Archers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Archers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for Australia Sportspeople from Adelaide Olympic medalists in archery Australian Institute of Sport archers Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics World Archery Championships medalists