Liz Kell (2001) is a multi award winning rower who represented Australia in Rowing at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Liz enrolled into Pre-Kindergarten at MLC School in 1979 and completed her HSC in 2002. The year after completing school, Liz received the Sydney Olympic Park Outstanding Talent Award after winning a gold medal in the women’s double scull race at the World U/23 Regatta.

Just a few weeks after that triumph, she helped Australia qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in the women’s double scull at the Senior World Championships in Italy. Although she qualified as a member of the 2004 Australian Olympic Team, a shoulder injury she sustained in a horse riding accident led to her withdrawal.

Rowing Australia’s General Manager, Jaime Fernandez, has said at the time of Liz’s Olympic withdrawal: ‘Liz has represented Australia at the highest level and to miss out this year due to her injury was a bitter blow for her. A superb athlete, Liz has given so much to the sport of rowing. I hope that she will continue to be involved in rowing and inspire future female rowers to compete at the highest level.’

Liz recovered quickly and by 2006 she and partner Brooke Pratley won the 2006 World Championships in the Double Scull. She then won the Female Rower and Crew of the Year awards at the Rowing Australia ‘2006 Australian Rower of the Year Awards’. At the NSW Rowing Awards, Liz won the award for NSW Oarswoman successively in 2005-6 and 2006-7.

In 2007, lumbar disc degeneration and resulting surgery forced Liz to switch to sweep rowing. Within a year, she made her Olympic debut in the eight with coxswain at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Liz’s connections to MLC School run deep. Her father, Robert Kell, was a member of the MLC School Council for two decades. And her great-grandfather, William Kell, who started the family building firm Kell & Rigby, built our 1926 Potts Hall.