General News
2 March, 2022
Twin gold for Morden at State Champs
Timboon athlete Emily Morden, 2021 South West Sport Supreme Sportsperson of the Year, has continued to build on last year’s successes, racking up an impressive series of achievements through the first few months of 2022.
TIMBOON athlete Emily Morden, 2021 South West Sport Supreme Sportsperson of the Year, has continued to build on last year’s successes, racking up an impressive series of achievements through the first few months of 2022.
Morden was crowned Victorian Country Champion in the under 20 3000m and 1500m events in late January and followed up those results by taking out the under 20 3000m steeplechase and the1500m titles at the state championships at Albert Park.
Morden’s personal best steeplechase time of 10:31.78 was good enough to qualify her for world juniors selection, and also set a new Victorian country record, smashing it by five seconds.
Morden said she was thrilled at the results and her continued improvement in her chosen events.
“It’s so awesome to continue to see my progress, I’m so thankful I have all these opportunities to keep going up through the ranks,” she said.
“My coach, Phil Molesworth, has been so great for me since he came to the Warrnambool area two years ago.
“I’m really still very young in the sport in that sense, a lot of the other girls have been coached for years and have reached their level, whereas I’m still at the point where I’m getting lots of PBs and continually improving.”
A year ago, Morden made the change from shorter events to the 3000m steeplechase, and was running over a minute slower than she is now.
“Twelve months ago, I was doing my first steeplechases, I was around 12 minutes,” she said.
At last year’s nationals Morden’s then-personal best of 10:53 in the steeplechase was enough to get her third place in the event, and she has never looked back, although the longer distance required some getting used to.
“I found going up from 800 and 1500 to the 3000 that I’ve gotten really good at blocking out the pain that you can just get through in the shorter events,” she said.
“When you go the extra distance, it doesn’t work so well doing that, and I had a couple of not-so-great finishes trying to just push through and go past my limit.
“That’s something I’ve had to learn, where I’m at so I can go as fast as I can without breaking down.”
This weekend Morden travels to Melbourne for the Athletic Victorian Shield League as a member of the Athletics South West Turbines squad, which hopes to win its division and earn promotion.
“There are five divisions, and starting off as a really small club last year we were in division five,” she said.
“We won, so we got to go up to division four, and now we’re hoping to go back to back and get another win.”
Morden will compete for the Turbines in the 3000m, 800m, 200m and the triple jump.
“The events rotate every year, so every three years they go through all the events,” she said.
“The events this year line up well for me with the 3000 and 800, so hopefully I’ll be able to bring in some points for the Turbines and we can win our division.”
Later in the year Morden will travel to Sydney for the national championships where she will be the favourite for the under 20s steeplechase.
Morden also hopes to compete for Australia in the World Athletics Under 20 Championships, which will be held in Colombia in August this year, and as it stands she is the only Australian woman to have run under the qualifying time for the event.
Whatever her results for the rest of 2022, Morden has already justified the plaudits she received last year, but she remains grounded about her achievements.
“It’s always been a fun thing that we’ve done as a family,” she said.
“We’ve always been involved in the athletic community, and I’ve found sport to be a really great way to connect with other people.”