Defending Commonwealth Games high jump champ Eleanor Patterson snubbed from Australian team

DEFENDING Commonwealth high jump champion, Eleanor Patterson, has been sensationally overlooked for selection in Australia’s 109-member team for next month’s Games.

FOUR years ago she was track and field’s next big thing but now Eleanor Patterson is in the wilderness.

The defending Commonwealth high jump champion has been sensationally overlooked for selection in Australia’s 109-member team for next month’s Games.

She isn’t the only big name to be missing with middle-distance star Jeff Riseley having his appeal against non-selection in the 800m dismissed.

Young sprint sensation Jack Hale was also unsuccessful in his fight for an individual 100m spot and has instead only been selected in the 4x100m relay team.

Patterson was 18 and still in Year 12 when she won gold at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Australia’s golden girls from Glasgow: Eleanor Patterson, Sally Pearson and Dani Samuels. Picture: Adam Head

The shy teenager from Leongatha, who trained on her local grass footy oval, captured the hearts of Australia.

But it’s been a gradual decline since, culminating in her snub by selectors who have clearly run out of patience with the former world youth champion.

Patterson finished second at the selection trials but the Athletics Australia hierarchy decided to only pick the winner of the trial, Cassie Purdon, and Nicola McDermott who finished equal third.

McDermott, 21, has had the strongest form out of the trio in recent times, jumping 1.90m in Canberra in January in the same competition where Patterson cleared 1.85m.

The bolter was Purdon who had been clearly below the others before winning the selection trial in 1.86m which was a B-standard qualifying jump.

Selectors overlooked Patterson despite the former world youth champion finishing second.

Patterson, who only managed a clearance of 1.83m at the trials, won her Commonwealth gold medal four years ago with a clearance of 1.94m.

She then went on to make the final of the 2015 world championships in Beijing where she finished eighth as the youngest athlete in the field.

However, her slide started at the Rio Olympics where she failed to get out of the qualifying round and then last year elected not to compete at the world championships in London.

Patterson, who sits second on Australia’s all-time list, has always stayed at arms length of AA, refusing funding to allow her to operate uninhibited with her long-time coach David Green in country Victoria.

Joseph Deng has replaced Jeff Riseley in the team.

Riseley was overlooked for 19-year-old Joseph Deng who caused a sensation at the trials when he won the B-race in a faster time than the winner of the A-race Luke Mathews.

The selectors opted for the undoubted potential of the former Kenyan-born over the experience of Riseley who finished fifth in the 800m and 1500m in Glasgow four years ago.

There are a couple of selected athletes under an injury cloud with Olympic 200m semi-finalist Ella Nelson told to prove her fitness at this weekend’s Victorian championships.

Steeplechaser Genevieve LaCaze, who also missed the selection trials, has been asked to show she has fully recovered at a meet on the Gold Coast just a fortnight out from the Games.

London Olympic 400m finalist Steve Solomon is another who missed the trials after staying over in America where he is studying at Duke University.

Jack Hale will run in the 4x100m relay.

It was a calculated risk which paid off with the 24-year-old selected in the team after last week breaking the national 400m indoor record in South Carolina.

Solomon has a history of back problems and he didn’t want to aggravate the problem on the long flight - which happened to him when he returned home in December.

“I really wanted to come back as I really didn’t like the idea of sitting at home,” he said.

“I have watched nationals before being injured and I hated it so knowing I could run was difficult but I really think it was the right move.”

The 109-strong team, which includes para-athletes led by wheelchair legend Kurt Fearnley, is Australia’s second largest in history behind the Melbourne team from 2006.

Originally published as Defending Commonwealth Games high jump champ Eleanor Patterson snubbed from Australian team