Murtha, Andrew

SAINT MARY MCKILLOP RESERVE on the banks of the Cooks River in Sydney’s Canterbury is much like any other Australian suburban sports ground … the last place you might expect to find a reminder of a legend of Australian ice. Yet, a bronze plaque on the Path of Sporting Champions honours a local athlete who was one of four of Australia’s first medalists in the Winter Olympics.

Andrew Murtha, born October 19th 1965 in Parramatta, learned to skate with Kieran Hansen at the Ice Racing Club in the outer western working-class suburb of Blacktown. "These boys are pure western suburbs," Hansen's mother Helen once said. "Kids with a one-track mind". Murtha trained in the west at Canterbury Olympic Rink with Hansen and Winter Olympic figure skaters Steven and Danielle Carr among others.

He was one of Australia's speed skating relay team that won the 5000m relay at the 1991 World Championships in Sydney, the first time Australia won a World Championship in a winter sport. The team entered the 1992 Winter Olympics as world champions, but they placed fourth after a fall, missing the final, to finish seventh overall. Murtha and teammate Richard Nizielski also competed in the individual 1000 metre event where Murtha finished 19th of 27 competitors.

At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Murtha, Nizielski, Hansen and Steven Bradbury won bronze in the short track relay to become Australia's first Winter Olympic medallists. Unlike his three teammates, Murtha did not compete in the individual events in 1994. At the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, Richard Goerlitz joined the relay team, and Murtha became its manager. They placed third in a time of 7m 11.691s, two seconds faster than their medal-winning performance in 1994, but missed the final by one place.

In 1991 and 1994, the years Australia won medals in the short track relay, the City of Blacktown named Murtha Sportsperson of the Year. The City of Canterbury installed a plaque in his honour on the Mackillop Path of Sporting Champions in 2008. The ice racer worked as a Health and Building Surveyor for the City during the years he competed at the Olympics. Murtha is also recognised at the NSW Hall of Champions sports museum and hall of fame with Kieran Hansen and Jim Lynch. The Hall pays tribute to the state's greatest sporting achievements.

In 2003, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame honoured Murtha and the other 1994 5000m Short Track Relay Team members with the Team Sport Australia Award. Award members are not inducted to the Hall of Fame but are acknowledged for their contribution to the nation's sporting history, and honoured in the "Spirit of Sport" Gallery in the National Sports Museum.