Members of the Australian Olympic and Paralympic teams were yesterday greeted in a civic reception at Perth’s Forest Chase.
A large crowd convened at midday to catch a glimpse of their Western Australian heroes as well as a number of Eastern States based athletes who had continued on the nation wide Welcome Home parade tour.
The occasion was met by beautiful spring weather and the athletes reveled in the public support by waving to the crowd, signing autographs and posing for photos.
The Perth parade was highlighted by the presence of Olympic Gold medalists Steve Hooker (pole vault) and the 470 sailing pair of Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson. Big cheers were also reserved for Paralympic gold medal winners Katrina Porter (swimming) and the members of the men’s wheelchair basketball team.
Hooker spoke of his delight at being back in Perth and sharing his success with the people of WA.
“I’m very excited to be here. Perth is home to me now and so it’s good to come back and share the experience with people,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve hit the ground yet.
“With all the happy homecoming parades and all the fun stuff I’ve been doing it’s hard to get back to reality.
“I’m enjoying it while it lasts and taking it for what it is.”
Elise Rechichi told the crowd, that despite the tiring journey throughout the country, the thought of arriving home in Perth had kept her motivated.
“It’s certainly amazing to come home. We’ve been in all the parades; we’ve been to five States already and we’ve got two left,” Rechichi said.
“Certainly it was great motivation knowing that Perth was coming up … it’s been pretty tiring but … our heart is in Perth, we love Western Australia so much, it’s just great to be home.
“It’s great to have the support of everyone back at home … and then coming back it’s great that they’re just able to share in the celebrations with us.
“You hear them screaming and yelling your name and (it’s) just lovely how much it means to them. For us, we wouldn’t have missed that.”
Perth swimmer Katrina Porter was delighted to share her home coming not just with the Perth public but with the Australian Olympic team members.
“I’ve been waiting for this day since I finished racing, I just couldn’t wait to get home,” she said.
“It’s really good to be seen as equal.
“And to be able to celebrate something like this, you know it is usually always segregated.
“It’s nice to be able to celebrate with them and I know quite a lot of guys from the Olympic team so to see them today was really cool.”
Bevan George took one last opportunity to thank the Western Australian public, before heading back to his home farm in Narrogin. The dual Olympian captained the Kookaburras to Bronze in Beijing and said that he expected the change to take some time to get used to.
“It takes a while (to get down from the high) I think its something you don’t get over very quickly,” he said.
“I’m getting over it pretty slowly but it’s a big downer to go from six months full time training to come back to a bit of reality.”
