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Star celebrates its 2016 Olympians… Ellia Green on the front cover of the Good Weekend.
RUGBY SEVENS IN RIO … Ellia Green (2010) was featured in The Age’s Good Weekend magazine in April*. She will be competing in the Olympic Games in Rio in the Australian women’s rugby sevens team, currently ranked No. 1 in the world. This is the first time that rugby sevens will feature in the Olympics and the Australian women’s team is the gold medal favourite. 23-year-old Ellia was born in Fiji, lived there with her adoptive parents until she was five. Her father died when she was very young.
Ellia and her Melbourne-based mother, Yolanta Green, are very close.
enjoyed caring for the elderly but felt drained having to train every day after work.
Ellia competed in track events before playing rugby sevens for the first time four years ago, having represented Australia at the World Junior Athletic Championships. She turned up at rugby sevens talent search camp in Melbourne in 2012 by accident: she had driven her cousin there and was persuaded to try out, even though she didn’t have her own boots! Many of the players have moved to Sydney and given up careers to focus on rugby. Ellia was a nurse in Melbourne and
Teachers are Star remember Ellia as playing all her sport with passion: “she was a real presence around the College, and especially at the various sports carnivals!” We will follow her team’s performance in August with great interest.
When Julia was seven years of age, The College community is very proud of current she went to a public Year 12 student, Julia Moore, who represented session at the ice Australia in short-track speed skating at the rink and loved it: I second Winter Youth Olympic Games in did figure skating for Lillehammer, Norway in February 2016. a few years before One of only seventeen athletes from Australia, discovering speed skating and never Julia was chosen to speak at the Opening looked back. In Ceremony. She improved on her Personal preparing for the Best by six seconds in her 1000 metre race Youth Olympics, and raced in the 500 metre event, lowering Julia trained five days a week over the her time by 1.5 seconds, placing 12th overall. summer holidays: My family has always been Her team of four skaters won the silver medal extremely supportive. Mum drives me to all my in the Mixed Nation 3000 metre relay: I was 6.00am training sessions. My family came to the only Australian skater who qualified for the the Games to watch me compete: it was great Youth Olympics. This made it extra daunting at hearing Aussie accents in the crowd cheering the beginning, during training sessions with other for me. countries.
*Excerpts in this report have been taken from 9 April 2016 edition of the Good Weekend: How our women’s rugby team will win Olympic Gold by Ceridwen Dovey
SPEED SKATING IN LILLEHAMMER …
L-R: Ane By (Norway), Julia Moore (Australia) & Shione (Japan)
Star has strongly supported Julia: Friends and teachers were super excited about me qualifying. I got such a warm welcome upon my return. The teachers have been very understanding and helpful when it comes to all the classes I missed.
Photo: Tim Bauer/Fairfax Syndication
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