Montags mighty at schools champs

DYNAMIC family duo Jemima and Piper Montag were the sole Jewish representatives at the recent National All-Schools Athletics Championships in Adelaide.

Elder sister Jemima, 16, fell just short of a gold medal in the 5000m Under-18 race walk event, finishing 26 seconds behind her arch-rival, Queensland’s Clara Smith, with a time of 23 minutes, 58 seconds.

Not entirely satisfied with the result, Jemima told the <I>AJN<P> that, “I thinks its been a tough period for me, I’ve had to focus on exams and there’s just so much else happening.

“So maybe my mind wasn’t quite in the race on the day.

“It’s always me or [Clara] winning. She even ended up driving home with us and staying with us, which was interesting.”

The senior Montag has already shifted her focus to qualifying for the World Youth Championships in Columbia next year.

“I’m going to Queensland to train with the best walkers in Australia, so I’m fairly confident that after the training camp and all that it won’t be too difficult (to qualify),” she said.

“I’ve done the time before; I just have do it again.”

Meanwhile, younger sister Piper, 14, placed ninth in the Under-16 shot put at the All-Schools event with a throw of 12.24m, a good result considering she was competing against a pool of girls nearly two years older than her.

“It was pretty intimidating,” Piper said.

“I wasn’t really [happy with how I went]. My preparation wasn’t so good and I threw about a meter short of my best. Just didn’t really come together.”

There are even bigger things ahead for Piper, who is set to compete at the state and national heptathlon championships in the early months of 2015.

With so much talent and ambition living under one roof, the Wesley College students in fact rarely train together and there is little competitiveness between the sisters.

“Our events are just so different,” Jemima said.

“All events need core strength, so we do that together, but then all the training’s quite different because we pretty much do opposite event in terms of long-distance versus explosiveness.”

Piper chimes in: “I don’t think there is any competitiveness. We’ve done quite a few national together, so with all the Victorians travelling together it’s nice to know someone on the team.”

ADAM BLAU

Photo: Jemima Montag in a race walk event last year.