Morgan Mitchell’s Rio Olympic campaign transformed by a documentary on animal cruelty

WHEN Morgan Mitchell’s boyfriend played a documentary about animal cruelty it changed her life forever and caused some furrowed brows among athletics types.

JUST under two years ago Morgan Mitchell watched a documentary and it changed her life.

Not just once either. It keeps changing her life, and probably only a couple of laps around the athletics track at the Rio Olympics next month will give some sort of final picture.

For now, at least.

Mitchell was a rising 400m sprinter in 2014 who’d already won a national title, and made the Commonwealth Games semi-finals, when her boyfriend played a doco about animal cruelty.

“It talked about what was happening in the environment and how much animal slaughter goes on and will only get worse,” Mitchell said.

“I thought ‘God, I don’t want to contribute to that’. I love animals, so watching them get taken from their mothers made me really sad.”

Morgan Mitchell follow a vegan diet now/

Mitchell decided her only choice was to become a vegan. No meat, no animal products, no dairy.

Her diet would be plant-based only, but that caused some furrowed brows among athletics types.

As a fulltime athlete who trained several hours a day, would she still get all the dietary requirements needed to fuel her body?

How many bananas does Peter Siddle get through every day, 20?

“A lot of people were against it but I just said: ‘My career can’t come before another animal’s life, sorry’,” Mitchell said.

“I sat down with my dietitian and she said all of these (dietary needs) can come from a plant-based diet. A lot of people are uneducated about veganism as a diet.

“You get all your vitamins and minerals from the food I eat. Like, tofu and beans have more protein than animal products.

“At the start it was hard. I had to go out and find foods I’d never eaten before and the energy levels went up and down but once I saw the dietitian and we talked through it, then everything was easy.”

Daily banana count?

“Not a massive banana fan actually. Lucky I am not a cricketer,” Mitchell laughed.

It was a decision driven by the soul but feeling “lighter and cleaner” Mitchell said it was her body that reaped most of the reward. She soon began more of an elite athlete than less of one, weight dropped off and her times trimmed down too.

Entering the 2016 season Mitchell was one of a number of promising 400m runners but she stepped up and dominated the Australian domestic season with 12 unbeaten races.

Morgan Mitchell poses at the official uniformlaunch for Team Australia

The 21-year-old won the Australian national titles in April and booked herself a place on the Australian Olympic team with a qualifying time of 51.84 seconds.

So far, so impressive for the former Australian under 19 netball squad member who calls Cathy Freeman a mentor.

But then came last month, when Mitchell lobbed another 0.6 seconds off her personal best to claim third in a Diamond League meet in Birmingham. She beat several big names, and crucially, did it by powering past them in the last 50 metres.

So much for lacking energy.

She is now ranked 18th in the world and given the improvements inside one year, who knows what might happen in a few weeks time.

“Funny things happen in Olympic years,” Mitchell said.

“I just want to keep running faster and see what happens.”