Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games 20km walk champion, Jemima Montag was this week named in the Australian team for the Tokyo Olympics.

On a family holiday four years ago, Montag, an Australian junior representative, had just completed high school. Over her last two years of schooling she had elected to just focus on her studies and compete in sports only for her school – Wesley College in Melbourne, her Olympic dream as a little athlete had faded.

Montag’s younger sister was loving the family holiday to Japan and pitched to Jemima that it would be wonderful if she made it to the next Olympics as they would have an excuse to come back.

Low in confidence, Montag responded “I’m not capable of that and I don’t know if I want to do it.”

As they were leaving the shop after the discussion, Montag’s mother said “I think you’ve got what it takes and there is no pressure from us, but if you want to give it a go, we will be right there supporting you.”

That was the spark for Montag, and under her new coach Brent Vallance they initially just focused on transiting from the junior race walking distance of 10km to the senior 20km event.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games were not on the radar, but in late 2017 Montag felt her body was adapting to the longer 20km distance very well. On debut at the 20km walk in December 2017 she was the second fastest Australian in the race. 

But still Montag was thinking of how strong and experienced her Australian opposition was and she could still not see herself on the Commonwealth Games team.

Then, there was a shift in January 2018 at an elite training camp in Canberra, when Montag spoke to her sports psych and started to believe she was their equal. 

“All of the girls who were vying for the Commonwealth Games places, were at the camp," she said. 

"There was sort of this, imposter syndrome feeling - that I didn’t deserve to be there, I shouldn’t be keeping up with these older athletes.”

But by the time of the Commonwealth Games trials, just weeks later, Montag’s sports psych had guided her to a different view.

“Rather than me thinking, 'I don’t belong here' or 'these girls are more experienced, better and older than me and they have been to an Olympics or Commonwealth Games before', I was able to turn some of those thoughts around.

"I flipped those thoughts of intimidation to ‘no one knows what I’m capable of yet’ and ‘I’ve worked just as hard as these girls at the training camp’ and ‘I know we have been around the same pace in sessions’ and ‘I’m just going to throw myself in the mix and see what happens’.”

It was successful as Montag went on to place second in the trials and secure selection for the Commonwealth Games.

Her confidence continued to grow in the lead up to the Commonwealth Games and on the day she was certainly aiming for gold, she achieved it by a stunning 88 second margin.

In early 2019 Queensland teenager Katie Hayward defeated Montag at the Australian Championships, but despite that, Montag set a new personal best and achieved an Olympic qualifier.

She was also impressive in the championships during the year, winning a silver medal at the World University Games and placing tenth at the world championships – the highest place in this race by an Australian woman for 20 years.

But the Olympics were her main focus and the trials would be in February 2020.

Montag was keen to win and secure the automatic selection for the Games, but knew she had a challenge ahead of her, after being defeated by Hayward 12 months earlier, by 86 seconds.

“Through January Australia was going through the first of many 2020 challengers with the bush fires,” Montag recalled.

“With our Olympic trials approaching we put some things in place like P2 masks and using treadmills so we weren’t training outdoors in the smoke, but it was quite a difficult month to keep training with what respiratory physicians were advising.”

There were more changes with the regular January Canberra camp cancelled due to the bush fires, but a now more experienced Montag, again working with her sports psych, was in control.

“We broke the 20km into three chunks – the first 10, then 10-15km and 15km to the finish line. Each section had different themes and trigger words that I can focus on to get through," she explained. 

"In the final part where it is really hurting I might remind myself to ‘dig deep’ or I might remind myself to ‘go back to the well’.

"The well is something I imagine, of physical or mental strength. It is deep and I can keep going back and bailing out more physical and mental strength.

"Earlier in the race I would be thinking more about staying really relaxed, cool, calm and collected, and not expending any extra energy. Those trials were like a mental dialog with myself.”

Montag reigned supreme winning over Hayward by 45 seconds, securing her Olympic berth and meeting the challenge her sister had issued four years earlier.

Away from the track and road, Montag is a creative person, with strong interests in music (she has played three instruments with the piano her favourite), art and is a 'foodie'.

Her interest in food started in year nine, when she went on her term-long Wesley College camp to Clunes, where students learn to live independently from their family.

In preparation, she asked her mother to teach her some recipes to cook for their eight-member house at Clunes. 

She soon realised her passion for food and sport overlapped. She worked out not only did she like the creative side of food but and that it "brought people together, sparked conversation, is fun, yum," and nourished and refuelled her body as her sport started ramping up. 

David Tarbotton