Tips for juniors from Aussie great Melinda Gainsford-Taylor

Melinda Gainsford-Taylor has done it all. Rising from the junior ranks to becoming an Olympic finalist, the Sydneysider is now a coach to a growing squad of athletes and a mum of a burgeoning sprinter.

We sat down with Melinda to talk about her days as a junior and her tips for athletes and parents.

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Thanks for chatting with us today, Mel! Tell us about some of your memories from 1988 and 1989 when you were competing on the national stage as a junior.

It was always a lot of fun. In those years I'd come back from an injury that I had on-and-off for two years with stress fractures in my shins from the age of sort of 15 to 16, so just to be back running again, I just absolutely loved it.

I started at Little Athletics when I was 8-years-old, so I had been doing a lot in the sport, but then having such a debilitation injury and not doing any of it for two years as a teenager was pretty tough, but coming back from that was amazing. I just love dit.

It’s great now that I’ve got young athletes and I’m part of Juniors again. It brings back the great memories, and hopefully I can help them and inspire them along the way/

Do you remember being really inspired by the elite athletes when you were at that junior level?

Oh, definitely. To know that these great athletes were competing on the same track as you was something special, and I’m sure a lot of these kids are doing this week. They’ll watch the Paris Olympics and Paralympics and remember that they were a junior once too.

I never had that one person that I followed, but I remember just loving the idea of reaching the top our sport. I loved our sport, but I love the idea of being in Olympics and being in a Commonwealth Games and representing our country by doing something that I loved. That’s what really inspired me. That, and having a lot of fun.

What are some of the other things you got out of being a junior athlete that carried you throughout your years as an elite athlete?

I love juniors for so many reasons. Within our group as an athlete, the goal was always to qualify for nationals, and that’s the same with the group I coach now alongside Katie Edwards.

I think that's a really fabulous goal for our groups. When you get to All Schools, it's a different scenario where you've got to get top two to get to Nationals. At this level, it’s a great opportunity for so many people to come and be part of it.

For our group ourselves, we'll come up this week, we all hang out each other. We're all turning up and supporting each other. Athletics teaches you really good values and it teaches you that if you work hard for something and you make the sacrifices, then you will reap the rewards. So regardless, if they come out of this wanting to continue the sport or not, they get a lot of great life skills as well as being a part of all this. 

Tell us about your juniors and how they’ve gone on the big stage this week.

We've got about 12 athletes competing here this week between Katie Edwards and myself. Between our elites and our juniors, they’ve been doing so well. The majority of them made finals and they've done PBs.

We’ve been really proud of them and we always know that they'll always give their best.

What are some of the things that your squad has learnt along the way this week?

It’s not just them that are learning, we are too and that’s what keeps things really exciting and motivating. There are things like coming to a national championships that is so different than running at a local meet or training in your group.

Everyone knows it’s nationals and you’ve got people from all over Australia. For a lot of kids, there is nervousness and it’s something they need to learn to control and you help them learn that it’s just like any other race.

The other thing that I have noticed is so much talent. There are kids that are running fast even at State level – in sprints, in middle distance, , jumping high, throwing far - the talent is extraordinary. It really is. Sometimes when I have my own athletes that aren't quite achieving that I go,  we don't give up on that because if you love what you do, then that's really important.

I have seen a lot of kids who have done exceptionally well when they're young and when they all grow and develop, you might see a kid who hasn’t yet developed and another boy who's a man competing against each other, and it’s important for kids not to get disheartened.

I always say just ride it out and the most important thing is for an athlete to judge their performance on themself.  You can only control what you can do. You can't control what anyone else does, so I think it's important when you come away from a championships that you sit down and reflect, and I do this as a coach.

You look at the positives, you look at maybe the negatives of it, and what to do moving forward. I think my biggest job as a coach is maintaining that my athletes love the sport. I have kids at home that aren't here at Nationals because they're in Year 12 but they're still turning up to training and that makes me so happy. They probably won't run at state level or national level, but the fact they keep training in their teenage years and that puts them in a really healthy, positive environment.

You’re also a parent of an athlete. What are your tips for parents with kids at Juniors and beyond that level?

The best and really the only thing for you to do is just support them. It can be very emotional.

I have to admit when you're the parent, you get a bit more emotionally involved because you're dealing with that athlete when you go home and not just on the track. You're so emotionally attached and you just want them to be happy. Let’s be honest, all parents should just want their kids to be happy.

You may want them to be Olympians and if that happens, that's fantastic. But as a parent, you should just want your kids to be happy with their performances. I've loved watching (my daughter) Gabriella this week. She’s run faster than she's ever run before but for me the best part was that I loved seeing that smile. She made finals. She didn't make the finals last year, so that's all positive.

You do get nervous though. You so get nervous.  I remember standing  on the line before the 200m final in Sydney and do you know the one thing I thought about? That my family was a lot more nervous than me right now because I was in control and they weren't. I understand what it’s like as a parent, but my tip is to stay relaxed as possible!

Interview by Sascha Ryner, Athletics Australia
Posted:  18/4/2024