Townsville Olympian Tori West’s generous offer to unearth more future heptathlon stars

Tori West is already giving back to the community that helped her achieve her dream this year in Paris, with a generous offer to bring more participants to her sport. Read what she’s providing.

Women's Heptathlon Tori West of Queensland competing in the Long Jump during the 2024 Australian Athletics Championships at SA Athletics Stadium on April 12, 2024 in Adelaide, Australia. (Photo by Sarah Reed/Getty Images)

Townsville Olympian Tori West is already giving back to the community that helped her achieve her dream this year in Paris, working with Athletics North Queensland (ANQ) to encourage more participants to try her sport.

All senior and junior heptathlon entries for the upcoming 2024 North Queensland Championships will be free of charge after West approached ANQ with the generous proposition.

West will also be a guest of honour at the Championships which will take place from September 27-29.

ANQ general manager Ben Payne said he hoped knocking down one of the barriers to the seven-leg event would encourage more people to give it a go.

“Tori has done that off her own back, she’s obviously been an ANQ and Townsville athlete for quite a while,” Payne said.

Tori West of Queensland reacts during the women's Heptathlon High Jump during the 2024 2024 Australian Athletics Championships at SA Athletics Stadium on April 11, 2024 in Adelaide, Australia. (Photo by Sarah Reed/Getty Images)

“She’s going to be here at the ANQ Championships at the end of September and she’s paying the entry fee for all the heptathletes.

“We’ve got a couple of entries at the moment but we imagine with the Olympics that a bit closer to the event we should have good numbers.

‘With heptathlon it’s a difficult event for a lot of people so we want to encourage people to get involved with it.”

Townsville will welcome between 600-700 high-level athletes for the annual meeting which is a World Athletics permit event, meaning results can be used to qualify for future events and championships.

Payne said the event, which was held in Mackay in 2023, was also open to the top school-based athletes who may not be part of an organised athletics club.

“This will also be a qualifier for the All Schools Championships held down in Brisbane in December,” Payne said.

“So we’ll have a lot of not just athletes registered with athletics clubs, we’ll also have an influx of top-level North Queensland school-based athletes.”

Originally published as Townsville Olympian Tori West’s generous offer to unearth more future heptathlon stars