Sport
5 May, 2022
Morden to represent Australia
SOUTHWEST athlete Emily Morden has been named in the Australian team for the World Athletics Under 20 Championships to be held in August in Cali, Colombia.
SOUTHWEST athlete Emily Morden has been named in the Australian team for the World Athletics Under 20 Championships to be held in August in Cali, Colombia.
The young athlete will represent Australia in the 3000m steeplechase, the toughest event on the track circuit.
Over the past year Morden has won gold medals at the Victorian Country Championships in steeplechase, 1500m and 800m, won the 1500m and silver for the 800m at the Victorian State
Championships, and run third-fastest in Australia for the junior 800m and sixth-fastest in the 1500m.
Morden would certainly have qualified to represent Australia at the Pacific Games held in June in Cairns, but she didn’t nominate due to volunteering overseas.
Once the World Juniors are finished in August, Morden takes up a scholarship at the University of Utah on the strength of her scholastic and athletic achievements.
International coach Philip Molesworth said he was both ecstatic about Morden’s opportunity to study and train in the US and disappointed that their partnership would be interrupted.
“I’ve made the comment to some people that I have to find myself an athlete with her talent that doesn’t have a brain,” Molesworth joked.
“Her scholastic abilities are up there with her athletic abilities, which means she gets this full, four-year scholarship.
“Otherwise, I would have been looking to get her into Paris for the Olympics.”
Molesworth said Morden was a “dream student”, and he was already looking forward to her return to Australia once her studies in the US were completed.
“By golly, once she gets home I’ll have her in the Brisbane Olympics team. She’ll be there,”he said.
“I’ve got that confidence in her because of the person she is. Her skills, her ability to suffer pain, her intestinal fortitude, it’s a mindset, and that’s what makes her so great."
“She trains hard, yes, she has a beautiful, fluent running action, but she’s got that toughness about her to go through pain barriers."
“It’s a rare commodity, I’ve only had a handful of athletes in the last 40 years that have had that.”