Louise's Story
Louise Bawden left home in South Australia at the age of 16 to join the national indoor volleyball program in Canberra. Three years later she competed at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games as a member of the indoor team that finished ninth. In 2009, Bawden switched to beach volleyball and made the Olympic Team for the 2012 London Games. Partnering with Becchara Palmer the pair fought out three tough matches but could not record a win at the iconic Horse Guards Parade venue.
Shortly after London, Bawden teamed up with Australia’s first indigenous beach volleyball Olympian Taliqua Clancy. The pair won the 2014 Asian Championships and then secured their Olympic quota spot after finishing at world number seven at the end of the world ranking qualification period in June 2016.
Clancy and Bawden were able to turn some terrific teamwork into tangible results, with the pair downing Costa Rica, Venezuela and the Netherlands to enter the Round of 16 undefeated.
The duo went down in a mouth-watering quarter-final against the star-studded Americans Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross, who went on to seal bronze.
