Connor Murphy

Triple jumper Connor Murphy’s journey to becoming an Olympian seemed a given a few years ago, but progress seemed to stall until Connor and his dad/coach Andrew Murphy, a three-time Olympian, made some technical changes. It led to a series of brilliant performances in 2023 and 2024 and the longest leap by an Australian in over a decade.

Connor Murphy was destined to be an athlete and triple jumper, growing up around athletics where his father Andrew was a track and field coach and athletics master at Trinity Grammar school, the leading school sports program in Australia.

Connor started in little athletics around 6-year-old.

“I remember right from the start I loved it, but was not very good being extremely lanky and uncoordinated,” he recalled.

His love of the sport grew. “I always saw making the Olympics, like my dad, the ultimate goal. I naturally gravitated towards the jumping events as they were what I seemed to be best at and ironically it was triple jump that I was the best at, even before really having trained in it at all.”

A turning point was when he was in his mid-teens. “I feel that I really started viewing athletics seriously after I won my first national title when I was 15. I started to believe I could be alright at this triple jump thing." He continued to get better and ‘started properly training at around 17 years old’.

Around the late/post pandemic years 2021/22 Connor felt that his progress stalled due to external adjustments. “I struggled a bit in 2022 and that I believe was a major turning point. It was the first year in my life where I did not improve, I really questioned whether I could be an elite athlete after that season and was questioning if I had what it took to become a 17+ metre jumper. This was particularly challenging.

"We broke everything down and looked into what it would take to become an elite level triple jumper. I would say that after 2022 was when everything changed and I became much much more dedicated and driven.”

The analysis showed his physical development was ahead of his technical development and it took almost two years for these changes to kick in.

At the 2023 Nationals he leapt a massive 39cm PB of 16.61m, for equal first place. Mid-year he was fourth at the World University Games, then in December won the Pacific Games with a windy 16.85m jump.

On to early 2024 he again raised his PB to 16.82m – the longest jump by an Aussie for 12 years as he moved up to number 9 Australian all-time. He won the Australian title and in June in Europe leapt 16.74 and a windy 16.90.

In Paris, when it counted most, Connor was superb, leaping 16.80m in the qualifying round, 2cm below his PB, on his very first jump in Olympic competition. In the thrilling competition, Connor’s opener held up for 10th place and qualified him for the final by just 1cm. He joined his father and coach, Andrew Murphy, as just the second Aussie to qualify for the final in the last 40-years. It had been 20-years since Andrew last made an Olympic final in Athens. In the final, two days later, Connor leapt 16.30m to placed 12th.