Olympic gold medallist Cathy Freeman presented nearly 200 pieces of equipment to the Berwick school in a ceremony on Wednesday at the gym, which was rebuilt after being gutted by fire in June.

Timbarra Primary School was Australia's biggest collector in the Coles Sports For Schools program. Parents and friends sent in nearly 136,000 dockets, which have been exchanged for basketballs, netballs, footballs, tennis racquets and boxing gloves.

Principal Janet Adamson said the gym suffered $2.5million worth of damage after a suspicious fire broke out the day before it was meant to open. "That set us back about eight months. We had 64 basketballs teams scheduled to play here, so they were all disappointed."

The new gym - with three full-size basketball/netball courts and changerooms -was opened to pupils on Monday last week, two months ahead of schedule.

Ms Freeman said the gym was magnificent and the school community had done a great job to come back from the fire.

"It's very typical of what it means to be Australian. We can overcome setbacks; it's a story of triumph, community togetherness, survival and hope."

She said she loved playing netball in her youth but found basketball more challenging as she was not "aggressive' enough.

Ms Adamson said games of basketball and netball would be played in the gym at least five days a week.

More than 63,000 pieces of sports equipment will be delivered to schools across Victoria in the next five weeks. Coles head of sponsorship Tony Phillips said the program had donated an extra 70,000 dockets to Timbarra Primary School for them to redeem in the next round of exchanging. "They've got a big school, and a big hall to fill."