Kathryn Harby-Williams, Australian netball player and sportscaster
Kathryn Harby-Williams (born 16 July 1969) is an Australian netball player and television presenter. She captained the Australian netball team.
Harby-Williams currently works with Radio Sport New Zealand and is a Sky TV commentator for Sky Sport 1's live netball coverage of the ANZ Championship and international tests, along with former Silver Ferns ] and Anna Stanley, and with co-Australian national representative Natalie Avellino; she also co-hosts the weekly netball show On Court with Stanley. One of the most successful players of her era, she represented Australia for twelve years (95 caps) in her usual positions of goal defence and wing defence, including four years as captain from 2000 to 2003. She was victorious at two World Championships in 1995 and 1999, and part of the team winning gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and 2002. She was named Australian International Player of the Year in 2001.Stemming from her failure to be selected in a representative team in her teenage years, she would take 100 sprints up a 30-metre hill as a regular pre-season training. At another time after spraining her ankle in a match against New Zealand, despite missing court training she managed to put in four kilometres in the pool next day.
She was the inaugural captain of the Adelaide Thunderbirds in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy national league from 1997 until 2003, after she retired from Australian netball and moved to New Zealand to take up a position as a reporter with the Sport 365 news programme.
Harby-Williams made a brief comeback in New Zealand, playing two seasons with the Auckland Diamonds in New Zealand's national league, the National Bank Cup. At the age of 34 she was selected as the league's most valuable defence player. She announced her retirement at the end of the 2005 season in order to focus on pursuing her television and radio career, but returned to the Diamonds in 2006. She was inducted into the Australian Netball Hall of Fame in 2010.After returning to Australia in 2013 for commentating for Sky Sports NZ, she starting commentating for Fox Sports in the ANZ Championship. Harby-Williams is also a selector for the Australian National team.
In the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours Harby-Williams was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "significant service to netball as a player, national captain, coach, commentator, board member and player's advocate".
1969Jul, 16
Kathryn Harby-Williams
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Events on 1969
- 2Mar
Concorde
In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted. - 17Apr
Robert F. Kennedy
Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy. - 16Jul
Apollo 11
Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida. - 20Jul
Apollo 11
Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon (July 21 UTC). - 30Jul
Richard Nixon
Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.