McDERMOTT Nicola

General
AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRES
Her training was disrupted by the nationwide Australian bushfires of late 2019 and early 2020. "I live an hour-and-a-half north of Sydney and in that area no homes were burnt. However, the smoke from the bushfires was quite extreme. Some mornings it was 30°C and the skies were red. On those days if I wanted to do a sprint session, I would drive up to an hour to find somewhere where the air was less polluted with smoke. But there were periods when day after day it was smoky and you couldn't really do anything. The authorities were advising people not to do anything physical, but if you are a professional athlete, not training isn't really an option. So I was constantly adjusting my training sessions so that I was not breathing in as much and being careful of the way I breathed. Sometimes I could find an indoor location but I feel fortunate that I didn't get the full exposure to it in the way some athletes did." (athleticsweekly.com, 01 Apr 2020)

TECHNIQUE CHANGE
For the 2019 season she changed her run-up from 10 steps to nine. "With the 10-step approach I often took off too close to the bar, although I knew adopting a shorter run-up would mean having to change from a speed to a power jumper. I surpassed my goal that I'd written down at the start of the year [2019], which was to jump 1.95m. It was a dream season." (worldathletics.org, 28 Oct 2020)

HERITAGE
Her maternal grandparents were born in Croatia. "My mother's maiden name is Marinovic, both of her parents were born and raised in Blato [Croatia] and moved to Sydney after WW2 for the new opportunities Australia presented. My Baba helped raise me as a child, so every day we eat Croatian food, talk to our relatives on the phone and embraced the Croatian culture whilst living in Australia. I am very connected to my roots." (worldathletics.org, 28 Oct 2020; croatiaweek.com, 14 Sep 2020)

At the Australian national championships in April 2021 she became the first ever female Australian high jumper to break the two-metre barrier when she jumped 2.00m. (abc.net.au, 18 Apr 2021; worldathletics.org, 18 Apr 2021)