BUSIER DAY KEEPING PREPARATIONS ON TRACK
ON the track, Riley Day is an excitement machine. Away from it, it’s that very excitement that she still thrives on.
It’s why she has taken her academics down the path of nursing and medicine. The 17-year-old from Beaudesert was yesterday announced as a Griffith University sporting excellence scholarship winner in a major boost to her dreams.
“I need something different and exciting,” Day said. “I’m one of those people that can’t do the same job every day so hopefully it will be really good for me.”
The scholarship caps a tremendous week for a “shell-shocked” Day, having won the 100m and 200m sprints at the national track and field titles on the Gold Coast, sealing a spot for the 200m Commonwealth Games team and being named the inaugural Betty Cuthbert medallist.
Day admitted nursing had been her second-choice course, after paramedicine, but was excited to see where it would take her.
She will head to her first class next week and continue studying right up to the Games on a part-time basis, presenting an academicsport balance challenge.
“I will definitely be trying to do as much as I can to squeeze in everything and get a lot of it done before my life gets so busy,” she said.
Well-spoken with maturity beyond her years, Day handled a curveball with aplomb when asked about the Jessica Peris saga.
“It’s not really my place to comment on that sort of thing, so yeah I don’t really have anything to say about that,” she said.