PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Taliqua Clancy is a 26 year old woman born on June 25, 1992
She was born in Kingaroy in Queensland, which is a small rural town 200km away from the nearest beach
She belongs to the Wakka Wakka Aboriginal people
She played many sports growing up, including soccer and netball. Her first organized sport played was soccer. Taliqua started playing indoor volleyball during her high school years
At 15 she scouted for beach volleyball and moved to Brisbane on a scholarship to the Queensland Academy of Sport
She moved to Adelaide at 17 to join the Australian volleyball program. Taliqua achieved a bronze award, playing alongside Eliza Hynes in the U19s beach volleyball world championships
Taliqua is the first Indigenous person to represent Australia in the Olympics for beach volleyball
Taliqua played alongside Louise Bawden in the Olympics. She finished 7th on the world ranking qualifications. They played many undefeated games and made it to the quarter finals
Apart from that, they competed in the 2014 Asian Championships and won
Her current teammate is Mariafe Artacho del Solar, who is originally from Peru. They competed together in the 2018 Commonwealth games and got awarded with silver
They also competed in the FIVB World Tour of Beach Volleyball in Portugal, winning themselves three FIVB golds
This year, both her and her teammate got awarded ‘Female Athlete of the Year’
She says that she is proud of her culture and is happy to give back to her community. Her nails are painted the colour of the Aboriginal flag and she has the flag tattooed on her wrist
One of her goals is to get Australians to do what they love and try new things. She hopes to motivate Aborigines to play sport and never give up on their dreams
One of the reasons she plays volleyball is because it provides her with international opportunities and she enjoys representing her country. She mainly plays a blocking position, as she prefers to play a defensive role. Her community means a lot to her and she wants to inspire others to do what they aspire in life
