Who is Eleanor Patterson? Australian high jump world champion aiming for gold at Paris Olympics | Sporting News Australia

by Admin
July 31, 2024

Australia has high hopes of its athletes in the women’s high jump competition, with Eleanor Patterson and Nicole Olyslagers both top contenders to earn a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Olyslagers — who competed under her maiden name McDermott in Tokyo — won the silver medal after a gripping contest against the ROC’s Mariya Lasitskene, where she only lost by a narrow margin.

Eleanor Patterson, the 2022 high jump world champion, will also be hoping to improve on her performance at the Tokyo games.

The Sporting News looks at Patterson’s career to date and how she has performed at Olympic tournaments in the past.

MORE: Complete Australian Olympics squad for Paris games

Who is former high jump world champion Eleanor Patterson?

Born in regional Victoria, Patterson began competing in Little Athletics tournaments at a young age, eventually settling on high jump as her preferred event.

She shot to prominence in 2013 when she won the World Youth Championships, and she followed it up a year later with a gold medal in the Commonwealth Games.

She achieved her greatest feat to date in the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, where she won the gold medal after clearing 2.02m, an Australian record.

She also won the silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and went close to being a back-to-back world champion, narrowly missing out on another gold medal when she finished second to Yaroslava Mahuchikh in Budapest.

Eleanor Patterson Olympics record

Despite her achievements at the World Championship and Commonwealth Games, success has eluded her at the Olympics so far.

In 2016, she failed to qualify for the final, and the disappointment was compounded by her failure to make the 2018 Commonwealth Games squad on the Gold Coast; this led to her taking a break from the sport before eventually returning.

She got back up to speed quickly, qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics and reached the final after clearing the qualifying height of 1.95m.

She became locked in a tight battle with a clutch of other competitors, including fellow Australian McDermott; she was able to make it to 1.96, but was unable to clear 1.98m.

This consigned her to a fifth placed finish, but was a good bounce back after her struggles in the years before, and it helped act as a springboard for her future successes; she will be a contender in the medal race in Paris.

Australia athletics team at Paris Olympics

Patterson is one of 20 athletics competitors who will represent Australia at the Paris Olympics; she is one of three high jumpers selected so far, with Olyslagers and Chris Mitrevski in the men’s event also competing for Australia.