GREEN AND BOLD

In-form Coast athletics star has sights set on 2020 Olympics

THEY are two of the next big things in Gold coast – and australian – athletics but Matthew Denny and Katie Hayward are keeping a lid on their 2020 Olympic ambitions ... for now. Discus thrower Denny, 23, has already ventured to an Olympic and commonwealth Games, while 19year-old Hayward is one of the hottest talents going around, dominating race walking this year.

FRESH off winning gold in the 20km race walk at the World University Games, Katie Hayward is already preparing for her next challenge.

The 19-year-old broke away in the last few kilometres in Naples last month to secure gold as her Olympics campaign gathers momentum.

But Hayward’s University Games experience has already given her an insight into what representing the green and gold would be like.

“One moment that really stood out was the opening ceremony and seeing the massive crowd and your whole country walking and smiling and waving,” she said.

“I just kept thinking, ‘wow how did I get here?’.

“Starting on the line, and seeing all these athletes from all different countries was amazing.”

After starting race walking at age nine, the Palm Beach resident said Olympic selection was always the dream but she never thought it would be within reach just nine years later.

“I’ll be turning 20 the day before the (Tokyo) Games begin so as someone who’s only 20, it’d be pretty insane,” she said. “Not many people make the Olympics so young.

“I always said that 2024 was the goal but to see 2020 as something now that’s achievable is very exciting.”

Hayward even dared to dream in 2018 and went out of her way to visit the island nation exactly two years out from the Olympics.

“I went to Japan last year to get used to what it’s going to be like in summer which was very depressing,” she said.

“Our race is supposed to start early in the morning so hopefully we can beat the heat for the first hour and a half and try to make the line without getting too hot.”

The Griffith University occupational therapy student has already been using some special training methods to try to beat the heat at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, starting September 27, training twice a week in a heat chamber to prepare for the expected temperatures.

“It’s about 34C in there and can go up to high 30s so we’re getting used to that,” she said.