It was announced last year that Ame was the recipient of the award from the Primary Club of Australia, which acknowledges outstanding sporting achievement by a disabled athlete.

But the ceremony to present the award at the Sydney Cricket Ground only just took place on Thursday night.

Ame said it was a pleasure to meet Mr Benaud, who related to her his experience sailing to England to play cricket, a journey of more than four weeks.

“It made me realise that a 15-hour flight is not so bad,” she said.

And travelling overseas to compete in disabled sailing has become a way of life for Ame, who was born with no arms and one leg.

Her latest trip last month proved not as fruitful as the IFDS World Championships in Miami, where for once she was out-sailed by the top eight Skud18 teams in the world finishing seventh.

The Americans, Canadian, British and even Israeli sailors had spent weeks in the area prior to the championships sailing in local regattas and then all stayed on afterwards for the Miami Rolex Regatta.

Both regattas were also the final chance to qualify for the Paralympics in London later this year, but her main rival Dan Fitzgibbon and his partner Liesl Tesch finished third and then first in both events respectively, most likely securing the spot.

Ame simply did not have the budget to compete in both events and while she is now looking at the 2016 Paralympics, her biggest challenge is to find a major sponsor so can continue to travel to international events.

She is still in training with her partner Lindsay Mason to compete in the Access World Championships in Sydney over Easter, but after that they will take a break.

“We’re still aiming at 2016 but we’ll take a break for six months and see where we are then and whether there is any funding – we really need to find a major sponsor.”