Three Australia Post posties have the honour of carrying the well wishes of Australians to their favourite Olympians at this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

The three were chosen from the nation-wide Australia Post Olympic Postie competition conducted by Australia Post among its nearly 35,000 employees.

The winning trio is Malcolm Richmond, 54, a postal manager at the Perth GPO, Western Australia; Kevin Ruddell, 51, a postal delivery officer at the Ferntree Gully Delivery Centre in Melbourne, Victoria; and Sue Merrett, 43, the licensee of Highgate LPO in South Australia.

Australia Post National Sponsorship Manager, Terry Hearity, said it was the fourth time since 1992 that the corporation has sent a team of posties to the Olympics.

"We have been a long-time supporter of the Australian Olympic team and the Olympic movement. We believe the posties make a significant contribution to the morale of the team when you consider they could be delivering more than 10,000 letters a day to the athletes," he said.

During the Beijing Olympic Games - to be held from August 8-24 – the posties will each spend one week sorting and delivering mail from families, friends and supporters of Australia’s Olympians.

They will also deliver letters from children involved in the Australia Post Letter Link program which encourages children to write to members of the Australian Olympic team and express their support and well wishes. The program involves more than 12,000 primary, secondary and special schools throughout Australia and aims at encouraging literacy and letter writing by children.

"The stint of the posties in Beijing will be no holiday," said Mr. Hearity. "The trio will be under immense pressure every day to sort and deliver a mountain of mail which peaks when our team’s medal tallying gets underway."

Australia Post has been providing services at the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games since 1992. It first provided Olympic Games’ posties for Australian athletes in Atlanta in 1996.

For further information, please contact:

Melanie Powell - Australia Post - Ph: 03 9204 5362

Don Elgin - Australia Post - Ph: 03 9204 5362