The Sydney office hosted an all staff lunch in August 2011 with Simone Thurtell who shared her personal experience, lessons learned and challenges faced as a female in the sports broadcasting industry.
Simone became a news journalist for Prime TV in Canberra and freelanced throughout New South Wales before linking up with her passion of sports broadcasting. She started at the ABC in 1996 on a three-month contract and is still a part of the family! Simone has commentated a variety of sports for ABC TV before moving to Radio Sport to work on the Sydney Olympic Games. Simone has been a part of Grandstand's coverage of the Athens and Beijing Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and Melbourne.
Simone returned to Grandstand to co-host the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Since then she has travelled to India as part of the ABC’s 2010 Commonwealth Games team. In 2011 Simone called the Aussie Diamonds in their overtime World Championship win in Singapore.