IOC Young Leader and Olympic race-walker Jemima Montag: Paris 2024 medal hopeful is encouraging girls to Play On
Having recovered from a difficult period that left her questioning her dedication to sport, Olympic race walker and Paris 2024-bound Jemima Montag is using her experiences to inspire girls in Australia to stay engaged with sport through her IOC Young Leaders project, Play On.
A decade ago, just like many girls, Jemima Montag didn’t know if she wanted to continue with sport. Now, three years on from her sixth-place finish in the 20km race walk at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the Australian athlete is aiming even higher at Paris 2024. She has put her full-time medical degree on hold for a year and moved to Europe for the four months leading up to the Olympic Games to fully focus on training and arrive in Paris in the best possible shape.
I feel like I’m in a really good place. There's no doubt I want to be the gold medallist this year.
Montag has gone from strength to strength since her Olympic debut in 2021. In 2022, she claimed her second Commonwealth Games gold medal before winning her first World Championships medal last year in Budapest, Hungary, with a silver in the 20km walk.
“The silver medal was probably my proudest athletic experience,” she says. “I finally reached this place where I felt I deserved to be on that podium. That self-belief was a big shift from previous seasons.”
She has continued that momentum this year, winning the World Race Walking Tour Bronze Meeting, then breaking her national record by seven seconds to claim a sixth consecutive Australian title.
Motivating over 2,500 girls to “Play On”
Having rediscovered her love of sport over the past decade after her own confidence struggles, Montag is keen to help girls do the same, particularly as they drop out of sport at double the rate of their male counterparts. With the guidance and support of the IOC Young Leaders programme, Montag founded Play On, an initiative that gives adolescent girls the knowledge and skills they need to overcome the common obstacles to engaging in sport. Following a pilot year with a local girls’ football club, Play On’s ambassadors have now spoken to more than 2,500 girls across the state.
“Play On places female Olympians and Paralympians in front of young girls in schools or sports clubs at the critical age [12-18] when they tend to drop out of sport,” she says. “This creates an immediate female athlete role model for the audience – sparking curiosity about their own place on the sporting field. We then go through the four key themes that our research found are central to overcoming the unique barriers that girls face to sustained engagement in sport.
“The first theme is female athlete health, which is critical for navigating adolescence and puberty. Learning about how our physiological and anatomical differences - notably the menstrual cycle - impact sporting performance and how elite athletes manage this helps participants redefine the female body as a superpower rather than a burden.
“The second theme is body image – why female athletes are even more likely to struggle in this space, the impact of coaches’ comments and of social media, the importance of sports uniform design, and how we can aim for body acceptance with an ultimate focus on function over form.
“The third theme is nutrition, because patterns of disordered eating are another critical reason why girls drop out of sport. The Play On ambassadors demonstrate what foods their active lifestyles require, their favourite pre-training and post-training meals, and ideas for participants to try at home. We also touch on the danger of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), raising awareness of the importance of fuelling for optimal health and injury prevention.
“Our final theme is inclusive sporting environments. This is a great time to hear the audience’s ideas about sporting facilities, changing rooms, uniforms, lighting and and other key elements that influence whether or not girls feel welcome in sporting spaces.”
Initially, Play On was an e-resource with recorded expert presentations, but Montag decided to adapt the project after realising children were fed up with looking at screens after the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, Play On has seven ambassadors conducting in-person presentations in the state of Victoria, but Montag is aiming to expand the project to have nationwide reach by 2032 when the Olympic Games are held in Brisbane.
The impact of the sessions is not only being felt by the girls in the audience, it is also influencing the adults in charge. “The feedback has been really heartwarming, particularly when we have a tangible effect,” Montag says.
For example, the president of a local girls’ football club told us how she went on to campaign for her club to provide additional uniform options for girls so that they could avoid wearing white shorts during the menstrual phase of their cycle. A simple change like this can make a huge difference to how comfortable and confident girls feel participating in sport. They found that this directly correlated with the participation and enjoyment levels for the team members. That’s when you feel really rewarded.
IOC Young Leaders Programme contributing to Olympism 365 days a year
Launched in 2016, the IOC Young Leaders Programme empowers young people to leverage the power of sport to make a positive difference in their communities, and therefore contributes to the Olympism365 strategy, aimed at strengthening the role of sport as an important enabler for the UN Sustainable Development Goals – which it achieves by collaborating with a range of partners from both inside and outside the Olympic Movement.
So far, with the support of the IOC, these inspiring young people have delivered over 140 sport-led projects in communities across the globe, promoting education and livelihoods, equality and inclusion, health, peace-building and sustainability, directly benefitting more than 30,000 people. Learn more about the IOC Young Leaders Programme and the Olympism365 strategy.
Worldwide Olympic Partner Panasonic’s continued support
The IOC Young Leaders Programme has been supported by Worldwide Olympic and Paralympic Partner Panasonic since 2017, and this will continue through to 2024. Panasonic, as the programme’s founding partner, is committed to supporting the IOC Young Leaders through different initiatives, for example providing its creative and technological expertise, along with its network of influencers and ambassadors, to inspire the Young Leaders and equip them with the skills and tools they need to enhance their projects.