Leisl Tesch

Liesl Tesch

Tesch celebrates at the 2012 London Paralympics with her gold medal
Personal information
Full name	Liesl Dorothy Tesch
Nationality	Australia
Born	(1969-05-17) 17 May 1969 (age 48) Brisbane
Medal record Wheelchair basketball Paralympic Games 2000 Sydney Women's wheelchair basketball 2004 Athens Women's wheelchair basketball 2008 Beijing Women's wheelchair basketball Sailing Paralympic Games 2012 London Mixed Two Person Sailing SKUD18 2016 Rio Mixed Two Person Sailing SKUD18 IFDS World Championships 2014 Weymouth Mixed Two Person Sailing SKUD18 2014 Halifax Mixed Two Person Sailing SKUD18 2015 Melbourne Mixed Two Person Sailing SKUD18 2016 Medemblik Mixed Two Person Sailing SKUD18

Liesl Dorothy Tesch AM (born 17 May 1969) 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.

Tesch was born in Brisbane on 17 May 1969. In a 2012 interview, she described her parents as "alternative" and said of her father that he would have rather philosophised than worked "because he didn't like working for a capitalist society. ... We lived off the land as much as we could, eating roadkill." She grew up in Brisbane, New Zealand, and the Lake Macquarie suburb of Coal Point, and attended Toronto High School. She participated in basketball, swimming, sailing, windsurfing, and cycling as a child, and was part of the state basketball team in years 11 and 12 at high school. At the age of 19, she broke her back after a mountain-bike accident, becoming an incomplete paraplegic. She received a Bachelor of Science and a Diploma of Education from the University of Newcastle.