Aussie high jumper Eleanor Patterson emerging from country cocoon in Leongatha to go for gold in Rio
SHE’S the high jumper about to emerge from her country cocoon in Rio. In our series on athletes to watch, meet the intriguing Eleanor Patterson.
WALKING through the CBD on a rain-soaked lunchtime to our laneway photo shoot, Eleanor Patterson slips through the crowd unnoticed.
Despite her slim 1.82cm frame and long blonde locks, she doesn’t play up her looks.
Her beanie’s firmly pulled down over her forehead, her farm boots heavy on the ends of long legs and she’s in fleece and denim that fashion long forgot.
Under the radar is just how Patterson likes it. But she won’t be able to keep it up for long.
The talented 20-year-old high jumper has quietly climbed the ranks to become one of the nation’s best medal hopes for next month’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro — and she has done it all on her own terms.
The athlete is trained by her long-time coach David Green in Leongatha, her home town in South Gippsland where she trains on grass ovals because the nearest athletics track is an hour away.
The pair have turned their back on $30,000 worth of funding from Athletics Australia and prefer to keep the national body at arms’ length if it means being able to keep their current country setup.
Patterson has an international manager and a local agent at sports management company TLA, who has signed her with Adidas and as an Olympic ambassador for Swisse.
Both companies provide funding and product.
“When we learnt Eleanor’s story, we wanted to share it with as many people as possible,” Swisse general manager of communications Sarah Chibnall says.
“Outside of her home town of Leongatha, where she lives and trains, very few people had even heard of her. But she is amazing. Not only is Eleanor one of the best high jumpers in the world, she is dedicated and determined to be the very best she can be.”
Green has been coaching Patterson since she was 11, having met through the local Little Aths club, where he was president. He has children around the same age as Patterson.
When they’re not training on local ovals, they’re at the closest synthetic surface — at Casey Fields in Cranbourne East.
“The grass changes all the time,” Patterson says.
“At times of the year it can be dry and hard in drought weather, and other times of the year it’s wetter and can be slippery, so we train in all sorts of conditions. I’ve grown up doing that, so wouldn’t have it any other way. My body’s used to it and it provides some cross training and makes me adaptable.”
Patterson admits there has been pressure to move to the big smoke, but she and Green have resisted.
“Other people would probably want me (to move) but I don’t pay any attention to it,” she says. “I’m with my coach and he lives two minutes around the corner.
“I believe he’s the best coach in the world so I’m very fortunate. I haven’t taken up that side of things (funding) because I don’t want things to change … There’s nothing I have against them, I’m just happy in my situation (in Leongatha). There are things in a contract (with Athletics Australia) that potentially could change things. (Maybe) not (being) forced to move but different control.”
Athletics Australia head coach Craig Hilliard told the Herald Sun in April he supports Patterson and Green’s arrangement, given her pleasing results.
“They work really well together, they have proven that and they just want to do it their way,” Hilliard said.
“We obviously want to support them and help them grow together as a unit, but at the moment they want to continue the way it has been.”
Patterson qualified for the Rio Games — her first Olympics — in April after jumping 1.9m at the national athletics championships in Sydney.
She says it was a big relief to make the cut.
“Beforehand, I was just trying to do everything possible to prepare for the trial and now I can just focus on the Olympics, which is a great feeling,” she says.
She travels to Europe this month and will base herself in London for upcoming competitions before heading to Florida for a training camp with the rest of the Aussie athletics team.
With the athletics events scheduled for the Games’ second week, she’ll land in Rio five days before the high jump, with the Games already having started.
Despite being one of the country’s key medal chances, she isn’t letting the weight of expectation
get her down.
Nor is she pondering what her biggest competition — the Russian girls — will be doing.
(The International Association of Athletics Federations last month banned track and field athletes from competing under the Russian flag at Rio.)
“I just do what I do,” Patterson says simply.
“My coach and I will just prepare as best we can. Going into a competition I just look at all the preparation that we have done and look at the faith I have in myself and my coach and I’m just looking forward to putting that to good use.”
“(A medal win) would be amazing that’s for sure but I’ll go there focusing on doing the best I can do and improving on what I can do. Whatever comes with that, I’m happy with.”
Patterson was born and raised in Leongatha. She lives at home with mum Helen, a receptionist, dad Mark, a partner in a construction business, and three of her four siblings.
They live in the main part of town but Patterson and sister Matilda, 24, who’s studying occupational therapy in Melbourne, and brothers, labourer Ben, 22, and Julian 18, who’s doing Year 12, spent their early years running around properties and farms in the area owned by grandparents and extended family.
“As a kid I was full of beans and always playing outside and on the move, climbing trees,” Patterson says.
“As a kid you try all sorts of sports. I loved netball and athletics, but with athletics loved the jumping component. It was well suited to me not sitting still and jumping all over the place.
I definitely loved high jumping from the get-go.”
At 1.82m (six-foot in the old measurement), Patterson’s personal best jump is 1.96m, which she set when breaking a swag of junior records in Townsville in 2013, aged 17. The national record of 1.98m was set in 1989 by WA’s Vanessa Browne-Ward and was equalled in 1994 by fellow Sandgroper Alison Inverarity.
Patterson has 2m in her sights.
“All I want to do is improve,” she says. “I look at the hard work Dave and I put in and you’ve got to have faith in yourself so any height that’s on, I’ll give it a crack that’s for sure.”
It’s with this attitude that Patterson was able to turn a disappointing eighth place at last year’s world championships in Beijing into motivation.
“As an athlete, I always want more out of myself.
“I knew I could do better but it fuels you to work harder. You gain good experience and understanding from that.”
Further testament to her will to succeed, Patterson juggled finishing Year 12 at Leongatha’s Mary MacKillop Catholic Regional College with training for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where she won gold at her first senior outing.
“Looking back, I don’t know how I did it. It was quite intense and I was away for four weeks during that Year 12 year competing and training, which was a big chunk of time. It was an experience I didn’t want to miss, that’s for sure. It was hectic but I managed and finished Year 12 and it’s done.”
These days, Patterson embarks on two training sessions most days. Jumping is limited to once
or twice a week, with the bulk of her work comprising sprints and building core strength in the gym. Recovery includes yoga, water therapy, and, being a Chinese medicine devotee, acupuncture and cupping.
She also avoids eating gluten and limits sugar and dairy. She says she’s remained relatively injury free,
but did suffer stress fractures as a teen due to rapid growth, a condition her younger brother Julian, who’s 203cm, also suffers.
Away from the sport, Patterson has studied several short courses in nutrition, business, and German to be able to converse with Austrian friends. She’s also an avid reader, likes to sketch and draw portraits, and enjoys time at the beach, particularly stand-up paddle boarding at Inverloch.
As a cousin of AFL stars Jarryd and Jordan Roughead, who she grew up with in Leongatha,
she follows the fortunes of their teams Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs, and keeps up with the career of good mate and suspended Essendon player Dyson Heppell, who’s also from the area, having trained with him in her younger years. She says having the town’s encouragement is invaluable.
“The Pattersons — there are a lot of us. A lot of my cousins and extended family are from there and still live around the area so we’re connected in many ways to the whole town, growing
up and going to school there, everyone knows me and I know them. There’s a lot of support.”
What if the girl they call Floss, because of the curly nest of blonde hair she sported as a child, returned with an Olympic medal?
“They’d be on fire,” she says with a grin. “I remember after the Comm Games, they were very excited.”
It’s little wonder self-effacing Patterson ranks Swiss tennis champ Roger Federer as her sporting hero: “Any athlete is pretty inspirational but he’s very humble and composed. It’s very admirable.
“I’m pretty quiet. I don’t often draw attention to myself. I’m very shy.”
The faith she frequently speaks of isn’t just her belief in herself. She’s a devout Catholic who attends church weekly with her grandmother.
“I’m a private person but (religion) is part of me. It’s something I’ve grown up with. It’s
a faith my coach has as well. ”
She admits she hasn’t thought about life after athletics and plans on having a long career, with Rio being the first of many Olympic campaigns.
“I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” she says
“I’ve got the best job in the world. I love to train. I love to push myself. People would probably think I’m crazy but I love the hard sessions. I love what I do, there’s no doubt, and want to be able to do it as long as I can.”
Originally published as Aussie high jumper Eleanor Patterson emerging from country cocoon in Leongatha to go for gold in Rio
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