Setting the Bar High – One Student’s Journey in Elite Athletics (Olivia Dunlop)
St Paul’s School is a proud TAS School, and we enjoy the opportunities competitive sport presents our students. Some students continue to develop and excel in their chosen activities beyond school, often through club or representative sport. With sustained commitment, hard work and goals, some achieve elite level state and even national honours. One of our talented students, Olivia Dunlop in Year 9, is one such student. This year alone, Olivia has represented Queensland on both the national and international stage.
In January, Olivia was selected to compete for the State in New Zealand at the Colgate Games and the Lovelock Classic. She secured 1 Gold and 2 Silver medals on this tour, which was an exciting opportunity to taste high-level competition and strong team building in amongst the fun of exploring New Zealand.
Earlier this month, Olivia once again competed for Queensland at the Australian Athletics Championships in Perth. Competing against the country’s best, Olivia demonstrated the kind of qualities that Queensland have come to expect of its elite athletes, determination, high performance, and good sportsmanship. She competed in the U16G 90m and 200m Hurdles. She achieved national rankings of 8th overall in the 200 Hurdles, and 12th in the 90m hurdles.
Most recently, Olivia competed in Adelaide at the Coles Australian Little Athletics Championships. During this event she achieved 6th overall in the U15 Heptathlon, in only her second competition for this discipline. A particular highlight was mixed 4x100m relay, which she was selected to compete in, where the Queensland team took out the Gold, narrowly defeating Victoria and New South Wales. This was Olivia’s first gold medal at a National Athletics Championship.
Olivia was selected to go to the National High-Performance Camp late last year as a combined eventer. After the experience of being trained by Olympic Gold medallist, Glynis Nunn, Olivia has made the decision to transition from a specialist Hurdler to a Heptathlete. For an athlete to successfully compete in multiple events, they are required to master a variety of different skillsets. Olivia must be versatile, acrobatic, powerful and strong. She must carefully manage training, competition and recovery, as these are vital to sustain high performance in the 7 events.
Olivia also recognises the importance of focusing on hard work and effort in how she approaches her training to refine the 7 events of the heptathlon. This involves 4 trips to QSAC weekly, 1 local endurance training session a week, and the introduction of strength sessions. Although this can be challenging to do after school, she is inspired by her coaches and is driven by the aspiration to represent Australia.
This is an exciting stage in Olivia’s Athletics development, and we commend her for the incredible commitment she shows to her sport of choice, and for the achievements she has secured already. We are excited to see how her journey unfolds, and look forward to hearing about future accomplishments.
