3 NSW athletes Glasgow-bound

23 February 2024

3 NSW athletes Glasgow-bound

Three NSW athletes were today announced in the 7-member Australian team for the World Indoor Championships to be held next weekend in Glasgow. Distance runner Jessica Hull and high jumpers Eleanor Patterson and Nicola Olyslagers will wear the green and gold at the first global championship of the year.

Jessica Hull, selected in the 3000m, was today named in her ninth senior National team - an incredible fourth in 12 months. She has been selected on every major Australian team since the Tokyo Olympics. She will be more than making up the numbers in Glasgow, arriving in red hot form after setting her 16th Australian record this year. An experienced indoor competitor, through her time at Oregon University, she was sixth in the 3000m at the 2022 World indoors.

Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson will lineup as medal prospects in the high jump. Eleanor has largely had positive experiences indoors. In her first ever competition in 2022, she broke the Australian record clearing 1.99m. She went on to take silver at the 2022 World indoors. However, her 2023 campaign was less memorable, when she suffered a fracture to her fifth metatarsal warming up for a competition in Slovakia.

She had surgery back in Australia with a titanium plate in her foot. But she made a miraculous recover and in August in Budapest placed second at the world championships. Last week, Eleanor returned to the same venue where she injured herself last year and opened with a solid 1.93m jump.

In contrast Nicola has had limited indoor experience. As an emerging 20-year-old in 2017 she took herself off the Europe to competing in three competitions clearing a best of 1.83m. Since then, injury, illness and COVID have got in the way for Nicola. She departs Australia after two tremendous jumps, 2.03m in Canberra and 1.99m in Melbourne on a cool evening.

We also recognise Gold Coast-based former NSW athlete Michelle Jenneke who will compete in the 60m hurdles.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Image: Eleanor Patterson & Nicola Olyslagers