Brittany McGowan’s journey from hockey, to journalism, to Commonwealth Games

THE swings and roundabouts of life mean Brittany McGowan will race for Australia at the Commonwealth Games, possibly against the controversial Caster Semenya.

Brittany McGowan celebrates winning the final of the women's 800m during the Australian Athletics Championships.

BRITTANY McGowan was once a bright-eyed intern at The Courier-Mail.

Instead, the swings and roundabouts of life mean she will race for Australia at the Commonwealth Games in an 800m race, where she could line up alongside the controversial Caster Semenya.

McGowan’s 2min00.24sec in winning the 800m final at the national titles at Carrara Stadium was the fastest time by an Australian woman since Tamsyn Lewis in 2008.

Now 26, McGowan’s sports interest was in hockey when she decided she wanted to get fit and ventured to the University of Queensland track.

Asked if Semenya’s performances are a motivation to improve as an athlete, McGowan said: “It’s a tough one. It’s tough for a lot of women in the 800m, 400m and 1500m at the moment to compare ourselves and be judged by our governing bodies on those times.

“I think in the end you have to stand on the start line and give it all you have got, regardless of what else is going on the race.

Brittany McGowan celebrates winning the final of the women's 800m during the Australian Athletics Championships.

“I raced her in my heat at the (2017) worlds. She is a very tough competitor.’’

Semenya, who was named in a preliminary South African Games team, has twice won an Olympic gold medal in the 800m after previously being barred from competition and subjected to sex tests.

McGowan was encouraged in 2013 to concentrate on athletics by Pat Clohessy, the legendary coach who guided Robert de Castella to a world titles marathon gold medal.

That was the same year that she decided after finishing a degree that there was something better for her than being a journalist.

“I went to the World University Games and I became a runner,’’ she said.

McGowan now trains in Canberra and is coached by her fiancée James Kaan and Victorian Nic Bideau.

“I just beat my personal best by a second - it took me four years,’’ she said.

Over the last two days of the Games trials, athletes faced the fate in the perform-or-perish stakes, trying to grab qualification times or selection.

Ethiopian-born 17-year-old Bendere Oboya fizzed with excitement about having lopped another half-second off her 400m personal best which delivered her a Games berth which, she admitted coolly, she had been expecting for months.

Rangy Alex Hartmann, who admits he took 12 months to overcome the disappointment of his Rio Olympics campaign, became an automatic Games selection in the 200m, running 20.57 into a 2.1m/sec headwind.

“I didn’t deliver in Rio and ran quite poorly. The Comm Games is enormous and I didn’t want to miss this one,’’ he said.

“This morning, I was thinking, `Just breathe properly, slowly and try not to have many thoughts’. Things can race in your mind and you can get tight.’’

Originally published as Brittany McGowan’s journey from hockey, to journalism, to Commonwealth Games