Patterson Crowned World Youth Champion

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Ex-Leongatha LAC’s Eleanor Patterson walked away beaming after claiming victory at the World Youth Championships in Donetsk (UKR) on Friday evening.

Eleanor arrived at these championships as the world youth leader and only took three solitary jumps to win the competition and secure a second gold medal at these championships for Australia.

It was an easy clearance for the young Victorian at 1.79m and then again at 1.82m – by which stage the competition was down to two, with only Italian Erika Furlani standing between Eleanor and the gold medal.

The bar was raised to 1.85m which Patterson again cleared with ease on her first attempt. Furlani passed. When the bar was raised to 1.87m Furlani, who had already set a PB of 1.82m decided the silver medal was good enough and withdrew from the competition. With the gold medal secure, Eleanor requested the bar be raised a centimetre past her own PB to 1.88m. She missed at her first attempt, but on her second attempt achieved her own personal goal for these championships, a new PB on the big stage.

With the gold medal secure, Patterson then tried to set another new PB of 1.91 but failed to clear that height.

“The competition went pretty good, I was fairly clean overall until that eighty-eight. But then I cleared that in the end. I was upset that I didn’t get the ninety-one but that’s next time.”

Responding to whether the gold medal was always the goal, Eleanor said, “No, a PB was the goal… whatever comes with a PB I’m happy with. It was gold this time which is good.”

Asked how she felt about her new status as the World Youth high jump champion, a very humble Eleanor responded, “Yes, it sounds very nice, happy with it.”

Congratulations to Eleanor on this brilliant achievement as well as Eleanor's dedicated coach, David Green who has been by Eleanor's side for many years. David was a senior member of the JDS coaching squad and a runner up in the coach of the year award in 2010.

 

To read the full AA report click here