Olympian Morgan Mitchell has unfinished business on the track — and has her sights set on the 2028 Olympics
She recently gave birth to twin girls after a whirlwind romance, but for Olympian Morgan Mitchell, the dream of getting back to the Games still burns bright — and she wants to just give it one more crack.
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The Olympic dream still burns bright for champion runner Morgan Mitchell who has unfinished business on the track.
After giving birth 11 weeks ago to twin daughters, Melbourne-based Mitchell has set her sights on making it to the Los Angeles Olympics in July 2028 with her children in the stands cheering her on.
It would be the charismatic and resilient 400m and 800m runner’s third Olympic Games and while the goal is something she would like to achieve for herself, she also wants to set an example to her daughters that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.
“I’ll be 33 when the Olympics are in LA,” Mitchell said.
“I’ve got all the travel and fun out of my system and now I’m like, ‘Alright, my body still feels young, let’s just give it one more crack.
“I want my girls to watch me run. I want to give them a little bit of inspiration and I want Tom (her husband) to be able to see me run.
“I trained at F45 in St Kilda throughout my pregnancy and stayed fit and strong, every single session was adjusted to my needs. Right now it’s just about committing to training, getting back into F45, getting back to the actual proper track running.
“I started running when I was seven weeks post-partum and I’m taking things slowly. The girls were delivered by C-section at 35 weeks and one day.
“I understand that it’s going to be hard … but I’ve seen too many athletes retire and have so many regrets. I just want to enjoy the next three years and see what I can achieve.”
Mitchell, 30, grew up in Werribee in Melbourne’s west with a single mum and two sisters.
The siblings were all naturally sporty.
“Mum made sure whatever we wanted to do, we had the opportunity to give it a go and we would try to excel at it,” Mitchell said.
“I fell into athletics out of all the sports.”
There have been plenty of sliding door moments in Mitchell’s life, one being when she had to choose between netball and athletics.
“I made the Aussie team for track that year and that was in Spain, whereas the netball U19 national finals were in Ballarat. It was a pretty easy decision to make, I wanted to go to Spain,” she said.
“It was that first trip overseas where I became hooked. You are travelling, learning about yourself and running on the world stage, I loved it and wanted more. Running was my window to the world and it has taken me around the world.”
Mitchell’s path to the elite level of athletics was rapid.
She made her first senior Australian team, the 2014 Commonwealth Games, aged 19 and at 21 ran the 400m at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I look back now and think at 21 I thought I knew everything,” Mitchell said.
“I just wish someone had sat me down and said ‘you have enough time, you are so young. Yes, you’re an adult, but you’re not.’ I think my career would have taken a different trajectory if I was patient, calm, and a little bit more focused.”
Mitchell’s Rio Olympic campaign ended in the semi-finals of the 400m.
“I have regrets about Rio. I went in in PB form and nearly ran a personal best in the heat and then I just wasn’t focused, I was immature, I freaked myself out and I just bombed out in that semi-final,” she said.
“Looking back, I, hand on heart, know I could have made that final if I focused on the race and what you need to do to execute the perfect run, and if I had put a little bit more effort into my mental health going into it. I just didn’t do that.”
Juggling the rigours and discipline of training, the media interest and opportunities that came with being a young star of Australian athletics, the heightened scrutiny on and off the track and the desire to have a social life like any normal 20-something, was not easy.
“I look at my 20s and I’m like, ‘Wow, that was just awesome’, I had so much fun on and off the track,” Mitchell said.
“I knew I could have run faster, but at the same time, I was a kid and I wanted to have a good time and enjoy the opportunities that were offered, like working with F45, one of the biggest gyms in the world. I’ve been an F45 ambassador for five years and it has been amazing.”
Mitchell competed in the 800m at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and was run out in the heats after an achilles tendon injury hampered her preparation.
She missed selection for the Paris Olympics last year.
The past 17 months have been nothing short of a whirlwind for Mitchell and her husband, Tom Brown, who met on a dating app in February 2024.
“I didn’t think she was a real profile,” Brown said.
“I had to message him first,” Mitchell added.
“Then we caught up four days later and had our first date at Mr. Miyagi (in Windsor).”
They got engaged in June 2024, fell pregnant in September 2024, married in February 2025 and their daughters, Honey and Maya, were born in May.
“I always thought I would have kids, but I was at a point in my life where I thought, ‘if I have then, I have them and if I don’t, I don’t’,” Mitchell said.
“Then when I met Tom, I was like, ‘I want them’.
“There’s a difference between finding a partner and loving them, and finding a partner and loving them and knowing that they can take care of you and your family and they’d love your children.”
Mitchell and Brown tied the knot at the Victorian Marriage Registry in the Melbourne CBD when Mitchell was six months pregnant. She wore a stunning two-piece wedding ensemble inspired by superstar Rihanna.
“In a few years, just before the LA Olympics, we will have a proper celebration, a fantastic three-day long wedding party,” Mitchell said.
“We want the girls to be able to experience it as well. It will be lovely seeing them as two or three-year-olds dressing up in little outfits and being the life of the party.”
Mitchell has weathered plenty of tough times during her career including pressure to be thin, disordered eating, a domestic violence incident in her late teens, and vile social media trolling.
“I was thrust into the spotlight at 19 and there were a lot of jealous people. I endured a lot of bullying and came across a lot of girls that were very mean,” she said.
“I remember in 2015 I was told to drop weight and I was getting BMI testing every second week. I would try to vomit in the toilet before I’d get tested because I knew if I didn’t lose enough weight, it would be a problem.
“It gets to 2016 and I finally get fit, but I was just so cooked from trying to keep everyone else happy. Then 2017 rolls around and I’m too skinny. I remember after training sessions I’d eat half a muesli bar and a salad roll if I was lucky.”
Online trolling directed towards Mitchell reached its nadir in 2019.
“It got really bad in 2019 when The Game Changers (a Netflix documentary on vegan athletes) came out,” Mitchell said.
“That was a whole different kettle of fish and this one guy ended up making a whole YouTube video on how fat I was. What sort of person does that?”
Towards the end of 2022 Mitchell started working with a life coach.
“It wasn’t even for athletics, it was more so for life outside of sport because I had so many distractions and I had gone through so much in my life in general,” she said.
“It’s honestly changed me for the better, in terms of making good choices and emotional regulation. I’m a very confident person, but I’ve got even more confidence now with who I am because of what we have worked on. Trust me, it didn’t happen overnight. I definitely had to drop my guard and be vulnerable, but now nothing really gets to me.”
Mitchell believes there should be less pressure put on young athletes.
“It’s just like any other job, you’ve got it, you’re expected to be perfect,” she said.
“The only difference is that you’ve got eyes on you and it opens the doors for people to judge and I always say if you’ve never been in those shoes, don’t judge that person.
“It doesn’t make any sense to hate someone because they can or can’t run fast.”
She urged young athletes to remember sport is meant to be fun and that they didn’t have to fit into a mould created by someone else.
“I had the privilege of hanging out with a few of the Jamaicans and Americans (athletes) over the years and they take training seriously, but you will not find any one on Earth having as much fun as them and fun times equal fast results,” she said.
Mitchell sees the LA Olympics as being the final chapter in her athletic career and has already mapped out life post sport.
“The plan is to move to Italy after I retire with Tom and the girls,” she said.
“I just think life’s for living. I’ve done Melbourne my whole life and I have spent a bit of time in America, but I want the girls to experience what I did when I was younger, which was to travel as much as possible, meet different people, immerse yourself in different cultures and to understand that people are different for a reason.”
Morgan Mitchell is an F45 Global Athlete ambassador.
FAST FACT QUESTIONS:
What was your first job?
Working at Cold Rock Ice Creamery in Point Cook.
If you weren’t an athlete what would you be doing?
I would be overseas in Milan or Paris working in a fashion house.
Name five people alive or dead who you would invite to a dinner party?
Rihanna, Barack Obama, Matthew McConaughey, Ronda Rousey and Tom and the girls.
If you could live anywhere in the world besides Melbourne, where would it be?
Alicante in Spain, but Tom wants to go to Italy. We’ll go to Italy.
First concert?
Coldplay.
Dream concert?
Prince.
Most inspirational living person?
Rihanna.
What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Stop going to Billboards (nightclub) on a Thursday, get to school. Seriously though, be patient and have fun because you have time.
First car?
It was a Mercedes 280SE, my mum’s car. It was red with leather seats and it cost $1000 bucks. It was an old ‘we just need to get rid of it’ type of Mercedes. There wasn’t enough coolant in it and I blew it up on my way to Highpoint.
Current car?
A 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser imported from Japan. Tom’s got a Tesla.
Dream car?
A 1960 Mercedes 280SL
Do you have a hidden talent?
I learnt sign language and taught myself to play the piano.
What is your rainy day TV binge?
Anything to do with a Disney movie.
Do you have a song you get pumped up to?
Anything by Sara Landry (American DJ).
Outside of athletics and family, what do you enjoy?
Working with F45. I have been an ambassador with them for five years. Being an athlete, I’ve been to a lot of different spaces, fitness centres, gyms but the one thing I love about F45 is that they are always inviting and it’s not clicky. At one point I was visiting 60 to 80 F45s around the world a year and it was always the exact same level of care everywhere I went.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?
You can have fun and I think it’s good to understand that balance (in life) doesn’t necessarily mean 50-50. A lot of people think they need to get everything even and right, whereas I’m like, sometimes with training the balance might be 70-30, and that’s okay.
This year I’m most looking forward to:
The girls trip. We have a partner’s trip booked in September. We are going to Sydney’s northern beaches. The babies are coming.
The one thing I’d love to change about Victoria is...
I don’t really want to change anything. Honestly, I think we have the best state. We have the F1, the Boxing Day test, the Grand Final and the Australian Open. There is something for everyone.
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