Australia Day Honours 2021: Ken Fitch, Mark Randolph and Chrissie Parrott recognised for service to WA

Sports medicine pioneer honoured with Order of Australia Perth doctor Ken Fitch is a pioneer of sports medicine in Australia, who helped to develop the anti-doping codes used today in global sport. The 88-year-old has attended 18 Olympic Games, working for the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and more recently the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He was a founder of the organisation which later became the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and worked for the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) for five years. Dr Fitch, who is a father of five and a grandfather of seven, said he was “surprised, humbled and obviously pleased” to be honoured with an Order of Australia today. He said his decision to study medicine as a 16-year-old was the best he made, second only to asking out the girl who would become his wife, Val, three months earlier. “I have had a very fortunate life,” he said. “I was an addict to sport and exercise so eventually I combined my great loves of medicine and sport.” Dr Fitch went to medical school in Adelaide, because there was not one in Perth at the time. On returning to WA, he worked at Royal Perth Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital and King Edward Memorial Hospital, later setting up RPH’s first sports injury clinic. He became a GP in Subiaco, where he eventually branched out into sports medicine at his practice. Dr Fitch became Subiaco Football Club’s doctor before becoming team physician for the newly created West Coast Eagles for 15 years. “One of the highlights was winning the first premiership in 1992, the first team outside Victoria to win the AFL premiership,” he said. “Subi won their first in 49 years in 1972 and then 19 years later the Eagles win their first ever one.” Dr Fitch’s move into Olympic sports medicine followed. He was the chairman of IOC’s therapeutic use exemption committee for 20 years and chairman of IOC’s air quality expert panel for the Beijing Olympics. Dr Fitch said he believed his biggest legacy was the creation of therapeutic use exemptions to banned drugs at Olympic Games. “I was being confronted with athletes with absolute genuine need to take prohibited drugs and there was no mechanism. On a few occasions, I actually gave permission but I had no right, I had no legal authority. This was worrying me, so I wrote some rules in 1991,” he said. Dr Fitch said eventually the IOC’s medical commission adopted the therapeutic use exemptions and they came into effect at the Barcelona Games in 1992. Brilliant engineer who helped fire up WA’s oil and gas industry recognised In 1986, a promising British geotechnical engineer migrated to WA to be involved with a promising oil and gas project. At the very least, Mark Randolph figured he would enjoy “two or three years living in the sunshine.” Over the next 35 years Professor Randolph’s career has flourished alongside, and contributed to the success of, the North West shelf project, and Australia has well and truly become home for him and his family. In fact, Professor Randolph became an Australian citizen “as soon as it was possible,” and described his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia as an extremely proud moment. “Obviously I was really excited, especially as a migrant. It means an awful lot to me, to be recognised as having contributed to Australia,” he said. Professor Randolph has been recognised for his distinguished service to geotechnical engineering and science, tertiary education and research and to professional organisations. Professor Randolph studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and taught at the latter for eight years, before relocating to Australia following a stint consulting on the North West shelf. “There was an opportunity to move out here with people I knew already, at the very start of North West shelf development,” he recalled. “It proved very exciting.” Through his research at UWA’s Department of Civil Engineering, initially as a senior lecturer and now as professor, and as an geotechnical engineer consulting to industry, Professor Randolph has applied his expertise to meet the scientific and engineering challenges of the offshore oil and gas industry. Pivotal to this was his role in establishing UWA’s Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems in 1997, through an Australian Research Council grant. The centre has developed a reputation as one of the most sophisticated research and modelling facilities in offshore geomechanics in the world. “We’ve got 50 to 60 PhD students within the school, many of whom are geotechnical specialists, and incrementally, very much with colleagues and as a team effort, we ended up building a really internationally well-known group that has attracted quite a lot of work overseas and locally,” he said. This is far from Professor Randolph’s first accolade. Last year he was named in the WA Science Hall of Fame and in 2013 he was named the WA Scientist of the Year. Legendary choreographer’s touching nod to beloved father The biggest fan throughout Chrissie Parrott’s successful career as a performer and teacher was always her father. It’s why the multi-awarded creative artist’s first reaction to finding out she was being appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia today was to cry. Because she knew that for the first time in her life, her dad wasn’t going to be there to watch her succeed. “A few weeks before I got the letter I had to say goodbye to my dad. He was 94 and he passed away, so I think I was sad because he wasn’t there to see that honour,” Ms Parrott said. “He was my rock, my biggest fan. I was just a bit overwhelmed I think — very overcome and proud and humble all at the same time.” Ms Parrott will tomorrow be honoured for her distinguished service to the performing arts, particularly to dance and as a performer, a choreographer, a director and for her mentoring roles. Among her many achievements, Ms Parrott danced with the Western Australian Ballet between 1972 and 1979 and the One Extra Dance Company in the 1980s. She was awarded the lifetime achievement award in the West Australian Dance Awards in 2014 and named a Living Treasure by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries in 2015. The 68-year-old now lives in Nannup, where she teaches children ballet to children. ** (If viewing the below table on mobile, turn phone to view in landscape mode) **