Gold Coast’s Ellie Beer becomes youngest Aussie selected for world athletics championships
Ellie Beer calls Cathy Freeman and Sally Pearson her idols. Now the 16-year-old is going to surpass both of them and create her own little piece of Aussie athletics history.
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When Gold Coast schoolgirl Ellie Beer took up running, her idols were Cathy Freeman, Sally Pearson and Tamsyn Lewis.
Now she has beaten them all.
At 16 years and 268 days Ellie will be the youngest Australian to compete at the world championships when she is part of the 4x400m relay in Doha starting September 27.
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And to say she is excited is an understatement of gold medal proportion.
Giving an interview moments after finishing the day’s schooling at Marymount College, Burleigh Waters, her conversation is liberally laced with the words “awesome”, “wow” and “amazing”.
“It’s so exciting. My whole family is stoked,” she all but shouts down the phone.
“When I got the call saying I was in the team I was like ‘wow’. I told my parents and we had such a good night.
“My friends have been so funny. They’re like, ‘can we have your autograph?’ Everyone is so supportive. I love my friends, they’re awesome.”
The journey from Palm Beach to Doha began when Ellie’s parents Megan and Greg took her to nippers at Currumbin Surf Club at the age of six.
“I did a lot of beach running there and I was like, ‘ooh, I like running’. Then I went to Little Athletics and started thinking, ‘running is super fun’. I joined Brett Robinson at Viking Athletics and I’ve been with him ever since.”
While she wasn’t born when Cathy Freeman won Olympic gold at Sydney 2000, she has watched replays of her gold medal-winning run many times.
“When I was coming through my mum told me that Cathy was an Australian who was the Olympic 400m champion and I was like, ‘wow, I’d love to be in her position one day’.
“Cathy and Sally and Tamsyn have been my idols. When I was at the relay world championships in Japan (in May this year) I had the chance to meet Sally and she was such a kind-natured person.
“I’ve always been inspired by her.”
Which made the news that she had pushed Pearson to third on the list of Australia’s youngest-ever world athletics championship competitors all the more momentous.
Pearson was 76 days older than Ellie when she made her debut in 2003. The most recent record holder was pole-vaulter Vicky Parnov who was 40 days older than Ellie when she competed in 2007.
The youngest male is Darren Clark who was 17 years 335 days old at Helsinki in 1983.
“I didn’t know anything about that until last Thursday when I was told that I was in the team,” Ellie said about becoming Australia’s youngest-ever competitor.
“I couldn’t believe it. It has just been such an amazing few days.
“Yesterday I got to see the kit for the first time, all the stuff they give us. It’s just awesome. I feel so privileged to be able to wear it.”
Next year she hopes to wearing Australia’s uniform again at the Tokyo Olympics.
“That would be a dream come true,” she says.
“Fingers crossed.”
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