She was a shy teen when she won Glasgow gold in 2014. Now Patterson’s back and better than ever

Eleanor Patterson sneaked away from school and was not even sure anyone noticed her missing when she arrived in Glasgow 12 years ago and left as a Commonwealth Games gold medallist.

She was a desperately shy teenager who worked in a bakery part-time in Leongatha in the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges and did her high jump training on a grass oval with mats tossed down.

She surprised everyone, not least herself, when she became a Commonwealth Games gold medallist. She is a different athlete, and different person, returning to Glasgow in 2026.

In 2014, she panicked at the idea of having to talk to anyone. Now she has the confidence and self-awareness of a world champion and Olympic bronze medallist, and the worldliness of a woman who lives in northern Italy (with her Italian former athlete boyfriend Marco), travelling Europe to compete.

“It feels like such a full circle moment in so many ways, and it feels like a lifetime ago that I was here in Glasgow for the 2014 Games,” Patterson said.

“I feel like I’ve had so many phases in my career. I’ve exited the sport, I’ve come back, I’ve flipped my life upside down many times over, and yeah, to have a bit of a full circle moment and come back to Glasgow as a very different athlete, is very exciting.”

Remembering walking into Glasgow 12 years ago seems foggy and otherworldly now.

“It was a blur, I’m not going to lie, because I was still in year 12. So disappearing for, you know, a month in the midst of year 12 was not easy,” she said.

“I mean, 18-year-old Eleanor was very timid and very shy, and really was not yet ready to come out of her shell. Even speaking to people many years later … they were like, ‘You didn’t speak, but you were nice, you were lovely’. I just didn’t really speak. I was very quiet.

“Even when I was in school I hardly said boo and then I just disappeared from school and went and competed at the Commonwealth Games, snuck the win, and then came back. I was so very, very timid.

“I’ve always had faith in my ability, and obviously it’s a strange career choice and job to go into, performing in front of thousands of people [when you are shy], and then such a pressure moment in so many ways. So it’s wild to think back that yeah, I was fresh out of little old Leongatha and still in year 12, still very timid and shy [and won gold].

“I’m very proud of how far I’ve come in so many ways and who I am today and what I’ve been able to take in my stride and I talk a little bit more. That’s for sure.”

Having gone on to win world championships gold and silver medals as well as Olympic bronze, having quit the sport in frustration then moved around the world with it, she better understands now how extraordinary what she did in Glasgow was last time around.

“It wasn’t until the last couple of years that I was really able to look back and appreciate [what I achieved] in a different light. I’m really proud of who I was and what I was able to achieve.

“I would train on grass ovals a lot, and then travel down to Melbourne, maybe an hour and a half once a week to train. It was a very, very different set-up that I had, and so yeah, pretty incredible feat.

“It was a baptism by fire, such a very big experience for me, like so outside my comfort zone and so outside anything I’d ever done before. I have had a ball. It’s been a very funny, full-circle moment as well.”

Fayaaz “Fuzz” Caan, now Patterson’s coach, was coaching another athlete that day in 2014, and her boyfriend Marco Fassinotti, who also now helps coach her, was in the stands.

She enters this competition a far better jumper than she was back then and is back in the form of her career, having recently cleared two metres for the first time in four years. But the field in 2026 is, like Patterson, a far cry from 2014.

Where the Commonwealth Games can present soft fields in some events, especially in these stripped-back games, the women’s high jump is not one of them, given Australia also has Nicola Olyslagers competing.

Olyslagers is a two-time Olympic silver medallist and the reigning world champion from Tokyo last year, who also won the Diamond League and was named World Athletics field athlete of the year. She also set a new Oceania record of 2.04m last year. She’ll be hard to beat.

Nigeria’s Temitope Adeshina has also cleared 197 centimetres, while Jamaica’s Lamara Distin and Ghana’s Rose Yeboah have both also jumped 196cms this year.

“Nicola and I are both in incredible shape. I mean, we both just competed in London. She jumped 201 and got the win. And then the competition four days earlier, I jumped two metres and got the win,” Patterson said.

“I hadn’t jumped over two metres for the last four years, and I’d only ever jumped two metres in a major championship, so to do that outside of that has been such a confidence booster. But it was also like, oh, this has been a long time coming. I knew I could do this.

“Throughout the whole year I’ve jumped 197cms so many times, and even though I didn’t come away with a medal at world outdoors I still jumped 197cms, which is a big jump. I knew I was ready for more, and it was just a matter of time. I was knocking at that door for a very long time.”

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