Christians Betty Cuthbert and Shane Gould were two of those women.

BETTY CUTHBERT gained three gold medals for Australia in the 1956 Games. Injuries eliminated her from the 1960 Olympics. She switched to a different event, the 400 metres, for the 1964 Games and won, defying a dislocated bone in her foot.

In 1969, Betty was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Eleven years later she publicly committed herself to Jesus Christ. Before this, she had been indifferent to God, even though from the age of eight she knew her running abilities were a gift from him.

In 1996, she told a press reporter, "We all live with faith. You have faith sitting in that (wheel) chair that it won't collapse under you. A lot of people think born-again Christians are loopy. I don't mind that but I wish they would take time to find out what it means."

Betty's favourite verse from the Bible is Isaiah 40:31 which was given to her by her grandmother just before she ran in the 1956 Olympics: "But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will be strong like eagles soaring upwards on wings: they will walk and run without getting tired."

SHANE GOULD was a swimming star of the 1972 Olympics where she won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Shane was named Australian of the Year in 1972 but retired from competition just a year later, disillusioned and in search of answers.

In 1995 and after more than 20 years of personal struggle, Shane Gould, was renewed in her Christian faith - a faith that began when she first acknowledged Christ as her Lord and Saviour at 17 years of age.

In 1997 she noted that: "While international sport gives utopian promises of reconciliation and redeeming salvation from personal and national ill, it will never be able to do that, it's not it's job description! God in Christ has that job and it is finished. It has already been done.

"I know that I am extremely significant to God, not because of my sporting and life skills, but because 'He knit me together in my mother's womb' (Psalm 139:13-14). I know His love for me because Jesus died for me so that I would be able to freely relate to His Father."