If you’ve been watching the Rio Olympics, you may have noticed a familiar face in the stands – Gina Rinehart.
Best known as Australia’s richest woman, the mining magnate worth $11.1 billion has just been outed as the biggest sponsor behind some of our top sporting teams.
Giving back to Australia
Most Australians would be unaware the chairman of Hancock Prospecting sponsors not one, but four Olympic sports, boosting their coffers by about $5 million every year– more than any other individual and most of the corporate backers.
Originally a sponsor of the WA and Queensland swim teams, Ms Rinehart stepped up to be Swimming Australia’s major backer in 2012 after Energy Australia pulled out of the role after the London Olympics.
Since then, she has become a patron for Volleyball Australia in 2013, even leaving daughter Ginia’s recent Hamilton Island wedding weekend to go along to the team’s qualifying event in Cairns.
In the last 18 months, she also began to sponsor the rowing and synchronised swimming teams. She supports a number of swimmers through her Georgina Hope Foundation too as well as funding young swimmers and university scholarships.
No surprise why Swimming Australia head John Bertrand calls her the “matriarch” of the Australian Olympic team.
