Australian Olympians, top footballers, boxers and cricketers are among the 43 members to be honoured in the Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame.

The list includes Michael Long, Wendell Sailor, Laurie Daley, Gorden Tallis, Jim Williams, Chris Lewis, Jason Gillespie, Baedon Choppy and Kelly McKellar.

These athletes join a long list of the Hall’s sporting heroes such as Cathy Freeman, Nova Peris-Kneebone, Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, the Ella brothers and Artie Beetson, who have all helped shape Australia’s identity as a great sporting nation.

The latest inclusion boosts the membership of the Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame to 172 athletes, which represents 30 sports and spans 132 years.

The Hall is documented in a new book – Black Gold; The Aboriginal and Islander Sports all of Fame – by Colin Tatz and published by Aboriginal Studies Press.

“The Hall of Fame was conceived in the mid-1990s to honour people who had achieved at the highest level of their chosen sport,” Tatz said.

“The idea behind the Hall existing as a book was to give young Aboriginal people access to a keepsake about their heroes, and to inform the public about achievements that deserve wider recognition.”

Membership of the Hall is confined to those who have represented Australia or their state or territory, held a national record or title or notched up a first for a distinguished performance.

Some sportspeople in the book are members of the “Stolen Generations” and many are from remote settlements where sports facilities were dirt tracks and dustbowl ovals.

Former tennis great Goolagong-Cawley described the book as “the most comprehensive published collection yet of past, present and future Aboriginal sporting achievement”.