Two ground-breaking ABC investigations won top honours at the Australian Sports Commission Awards on Wednesday night.
An ABC News Tasmania team led by Jessica Moran, Chris Rowbottom, Andy Burns and Charlotte King took home the award for Best coverage of a community sport issue – rural & regional media for their report 'Stacking the Odds: Inside a Tasmanian harness racing juggernaut'.
The revelations in their harness racing investigation led to the Ray Murrihy inquiry, which made scathing findings about the state of the industry.
ABC National Sport Reporter, David Mark, was the joint winner of Best reporting of an issue in sport for his investigation into paedophile rock climbing coach Stephen Mitchell.
And ABC Sport's Samantha Lewis was highly commended in the category of Best sport profile - written for her piece 'Meet Angela Iannotta, Australia's forgotten World Cup pioneer'.
The ASC Media Awards have been running for more than 21 years and recognise excellence in Australian sports journalism, broadcasting, production and photography.
Other ABC finalists were:
Best sport coverage by an individual - broadcast
- Corbin Middlemas, ABC Sport
Best sport podcast
- ABC Sport Daily, Patrick Stack / ABC Sport
Best coverage of a community sport issue- rural & regional media
- Briana Fiore and Anthony Pancia, ABC Regional Western Australia 'The Fights of our Lives: a boxing story'
- Daniel Miles and Richard Crabtree, ABC South West Victoria 'Stephen Giles, Victoria's oldest active footballer'
Best coverage of sport for people with disability
- That Pacific Sports Show, ABC Pacific 'Oceania Para Badminton Championships'