page_title: Liesl Tesch
section_title: Sailing
hierarchical_section_title: Liesl Tesch / Competitive career / Sailing
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Australian Paralympic team members Daniel Fitzgibbon &amp; Liesl Tesch at the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games in London
context_page_description: Liesl Dorothy Tesch AM is an Australian wheelchair basketball player, sailor and politician. She became an incomplete paraplegic after a mountain bike accident at the age of 19. She competed in her national wheelchair basketball team at five paralympics, winning three medals, and was the first woman to play the sport professionally. She took up sailing in 2010, winning gold medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics with partner Daniel Fitzgibbon. In April 2017, she was elected the member for Gosford in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly at the Gosford state by-election.
context_section_description: In 2009 Tesch participated in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on Sailors with Disabilities. After seeing an SBS documentary about the journey, Beijing silver medallist Daniel Fitzgibbon contacted her in late 2010 and they formed a sailing partnership. Sailing the two-person SKUD 18 with Fitzgibbon, the team had immediate success, winning gold at the ISAF Gold Cup in January 2011 and a bronze medal at the IFDS World Championships in July of that year. They won a gold medal with a race to spare at the London 2012 Paralympic sailing competition held at Weymouth and Portland. Tesch's mother had died of cancer after her first day of racing at the games; shortly after winning the gold medal, she said it was "a beautiful way to celebrate my mum's life to win gold on a beautiful sunny day at the Paralympic Games".
  At the 2014 IFDS World Championships in Halifax, Canada, Tesch teamed with Fitzgibbon to win the two-person SKUD 18 class. Tesch and Fitzgibbon won the 2015 IFDS World Championships in Melbourne. Tesch and Fitzgibbon won the bronze medal in the SKUD 18 class at the 2016 World Championships held in Medemblik, Netherlands.
  On 20 June 2016, Tesch was robbed of her bicycle at gunpoint while on a fitness ride with her physiotherapist in Rio de Janeiro, in preparation for that year's Paralympics. She was uninjured but shaken after the attack. Tesch and Fitzgibbon won back to back Paralympic gold medals by winning the SKUD18 at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. They won eight out of 11 races and had three second placings.
caption: Tesch and Fitzgibbon at the 2012 London Paralympics
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