By Jonathan Drennan
Less than 100 days before the start of the Olympics in Paris, two of Australia’s medal prospects in the high jump, Eleanor Patterson and Brandon Starc, have expressed their frustration at moving to Tokyo for a month due to the lack of consistently available elite training facilities in Sydney.
Patterson and Starc are coached by Alex Stewart and are normally based at the athletic centre at Sydney Olympic Park, but with school athletic carnivals season in full swing Olympic athletes cannot get consistent track time at the facility and will move to Japan to find a suitable alternative.
Patterson, who won a gold medal in the World Championships in 2022 and a silver medal in 2022, spoke about the difficulties she has faced managing her daily training routine in the lead-up to Paris.
“We head overseas to Japan purely because we don’t get access to a track in Sydney during the day, and so it’s quite tough in a lot of ways,” Patterson said.
“We want to keep a normal routine. School carnivals tend to take precedence.
“I certainly want to encourage young athletes and young kids to get involved in school carnivals and whatnot, but yeah, it means that we can’t get access to a track and we end up going to Japan.”
Eleanor Patterson doing some light training at Sydney Olympic ParkCredit: Nick Moir
Patterson is used to moving across the city for track time, alternating between Narrabeen, Penrith and Bankstown when Sydney Olympic Park is not available due to school carnivals.
“It makes it hard and sometimes we end up travelling quite far to get access to a track during a day, especially as the winter months come,” Patterson said. “It starts to get cold at night and you can’t get access to a track until five, and it makes it hard to be training at your best and so hence why we chase the summer sun or chase some access to facilities.”
Starc, who placed fifth in the Tokyo Olympics and has been recovering from a pelvis injury, will also travel to Japan and said the hunt for a track to train on had become part of a frustrating routine for most Sydney-based Olympians competing in athletics.
“It’s unfortunately become quite the norm,” Starc said.
Brandon Starc limbering up at Sydney Olympic Park Credit: Nick Moir
“We’re not super surprised with it, it’s still quite annoying. But, you know, it doesn’t seem like anything’s really happening [in terms of improving access to facilities], which is a shame.”
Stewart is managing Australian high jumpers and long jumpers in preparation for the Olympics and said the impact of changing training facilities in the lead-up to the Games was not solely down to schools’ athletics carnivals, but also other sports that can take precedence over athletics.
“This is my assumption on the reality, that we’re not viewed as a big enough sport to warrant a [dedicated] facility, but we are the major Olympic sport [in athletics],” Stewart said.
“We are the core of the Olympic Games and we deserve a facility that’s exclusive to us. The reality is we’re bumped for every other sport, and we’ve even been bumped out of this facility at times for NRL teams.
“For what purpose? There are football fields everywhere, we don’t have tracks everywhere.”
Stewart and Starc both have young families in Sydney, while Patterson moved to the city from Victoria five years ago specifically to train under Stewart, leaving them unable to uproot to a specialised elite facility such as the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra permanently.
Prospective Olympic athletes spend a large proportion of their year competing across the world in the lucrative Diamond League and other qualifying events, making a consistent home training base critical.
Stewart has also discussed the issue of a lack of suitable available facilities with his network of athletics coaches across Australia, acknowledging it is not an isolated issue.
“Talking with my colleagues, it seems to be an issue that’s faced around the country in varying degrees, although it seems to be significantly worse in Sydney,” Stewart said.
“Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre (SOPAC) is one of the busiest athletics facilities in Australia,” a spokesperson from Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre (SOPAC) said.
“SOPAC supports NSWIS and Athletics NSW along with a diverse range of events from school carnivals to international competitions.
“Although challenging, we strive to balance the needs of the community, students and athletes at all levels of the sport.”
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