Samantha Riley

Samantha Riley, born Samantha Linette Pearl Riley on 13 November 1972, is an Australian former breaststroke swimmer of Aboriginal descent and the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic medal. Advised as a child to swim to combat asthma, she trained under Scott Volkers at the Commercial Swimming Club in Brisbane. She won bronze in the 100 metre breaststroke at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. In 1994 she won both breaststroke events at the Commonwealth Games and at the World Championships in Rome, setting a world record of 1:07.69 in the 100 metres, and Swimming World named her Female World Swimmer of the Year. She won three Olympic medals across the 1992 and 1996 Games, and at Atlanta she competed under a doping controversy over a headache tablet her coach admitted giving her, for which she was exonerated.