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High jumper Keeley O’Hagan’s journey to the Commonwealth Games was long and arduous. But she’s proud that her Kapiti Coast roots helped her get there, she tells Suzanne McFadden in the latest installment of On Your Marks.
Keeley O’Hagan walked into her old school, loaded with boxes of brand new shoes.
“She had all those nice shoes and she said, ‘Can you make sure you give these to the kids who can’t buy new sneakers?'” recalls Andy Fraser, principal of Ōtaki College.
“Keley has a big heart.”
O’Hagan, the three-time National High Jump Champion, now lives, works and trains in Christchurch, but often returns to her small hometown on the Kapiti Coast to visit her parents, two older brothers and cousins who live there. Sometimes she dives into high school.
“It’s cool when you have students who don’t forget where they come from, yet are very humble,” Fraser says. “But who keep pushing themselves and striving to be the best they can be.”
That’s O’Hagan with a T. Because she had attended world age group championships in school, she was often asked to speak to Ōtaki’s students. But she has always objected, because she had yet to make a New Zealand senior athletics team.
Now she can’t turn down another invite as she prepares to compete for New Zealand at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
And the story she will tell the 500 students of Ōtaki College? It won’t be less inspiring.
At 28, O’Hagan has been to hell and back – but now she’s thriving. The probation officer turned nutritionist is happy in her job and she has never jumped so high in her athletic career.
The girl who went to her first international athletics competition in Australia at the age of 11 has had many painful battles with her mental and physical health. The list is poignant: an eating disorder, RED-S syndrome, endometriosis, a range of injuries, recurrent illnesses and depression. She tried to commit suicide when she was 17.
But with plenty of support from those closest to her, and an understanding of how she was under fueling her body, O’Hagan has come through the other side. She is stronger, mentally and physically, and she is performing better than ever.
Under a new coach in a new city, O’Hagan went undefeated last New Zealand’s athletics season, and her perfect 1.88m jump at the National Championships in Hastings in March was not just a personal best – for the first time in seven years – but it also pushed her into the Commonwealth Games battle.
She then had a anxious few months before meeting her eligibility criteria by jumping 1.82m twice in Australia last month and finally getting her ticket to Birmingham.
“My journey to get here has by no means been linear,” says O’Hagan.
“But it’s just so nice to see that my hard work and sacrifices have all paid off. Through all my challenges I have always kept a place in my heart for athletics. And when I was older, I knew I would regret it if I didn’t at least try.
“And when I made that commitment, I fell in love with it again and found the joy of training most of all. I also like the daily challenges.”
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The hallway outside Andy Fraser’s office also serves as Ōtaki College’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Picture after framed picture of students who have represented New Zealand in their chosen codes line the walls.
There are two-time Olympic kayaker John MacDonald, Silver Fern Katarina Cooper and Jordan Aria Housiaux, who led the Paddle Ferns to victory at the 2016 Canoe Polo World Championships. New Zealand whitewater canoe slalom sisters Louise, Isobelle and Heather Jull are among a stream of national waka-ama representatives and Touch Blacks.
Fraser’s daughter, Alana, is one of them, who played touch for New Zealand age group teams. And, of course, there’s a photo of O’Hagan from the 2008 Pacific School Games.
It is a school that is proud of its sporting heritage, where most children are involved in at least one code. And Ōtaki doesn’t have the struggle to keep girls exercising like many other schools do, Fraser says.
“We don’t seem to have the same dropout rates for girls. We are a small town between Paraparaumu and Levin, and there is no public transport to Levin, and the connection to Paraparaumu is limited unless you have a car. Our kids don’t have the pull to go to cities or other places to do things,” he says.
“The way they meet and enjoy life together is through sports. Many have very active whānau engaged in sports; there are huge connections with waka ama.
“Basketball has recently become the main sport at our school; our soccer team has won championships. Girls volleyball is growing and korfball remains a strong option.”
O’Hagan was one of those kids who wanted to play anything.
“I did everything from primary school. I played cricket – although I don’t know any of the rules now – touch, netball, badminton, tennis, athletics. And I danced until I was 15. There were more sports I wanted to do, like hockey, but I couldn’t fit them in,” she says.
“Poor mother, she drove us across the country every day. When athletics became my dominant sport, she did athletics training with me.
“That’s a drawback in a small town – things are much further away. I was training in Paraparaumu which was a 30 minute drive at the time. We went there before school for my morning workout and did the same after school.”
O’Hagan made a quick goal-scoring attack and got Manawatu making rep teams in netball, but she gave up the game at age 15 to focus solely on athletics — high jump in particular.
It was an event she quickly mastered after starting track and field at age 10. By age 11, she was on her way to the Pacific School Games in Melbourne, where she won silver.
“In a small community, everyone gathers around you and helps you get there,” says O’Hagan.
At age 15 she jumped 1.82m – a national youth record – and was just 16 when she went to the 2010 U20 World Championships in Canada (with Jacko Gill, Tom Walsh and Angie Petty). She followed that the following year with the World Youth Games in France.
“In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have gone,” she says now. “It was too much for a youngster to handle at 16 and 17.”
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O’Hagan loved growing up in the tight-knit Ōtaki community, which today numbers just 4,000.
“After school, you went motorcycling with your friends to the river for a swim,” she says. “That is if we don’t do sports. And almost everyone was involved in sports.”
Despite the idyllic lifestyle, O’Hagan took a “leap in confidence” and in mid-year 12 she moved to Auckland, where she transferred to Western Springs College for her final years of school.
“I moved for my mental health,” she says. “I had quite a few things going on at the time and I had to get out of the small town. There were heaps of positives growing up, but once I got to a certain age, I had to branch out and figure things out for myself.
However, O’Hagan continued to struggle with her physical and mental health.
“Around the age of 15, I became more aware of my body image,” she says. “I had never been a big person, but I’ve competed abroad and seen all these athletes in their rundies [running briefs] and crop tops, I thought ‘Wow, I don’t look like that’. But these people were years older than me.”
Although she occasionally ate a lot – “My nickname was Noo-noo, after the vacuum cleaner on Teletubbies” – she developed an eating disorder when she was 17. She now realizes she also had RED-S – that afflicting athlete who doesn’t refuel their bodies to match the energy they burn, leading to injuries, illnesses and menstrual problems.
“I was in that RED-S state unintentionally because I exercise and dance so much,” O’Hagan says. “I had no nutritional support to make the right choices about what I should eat. On the days I would do morning sessions, I don’t think I had a full breakfast before school.
“I had very poor mental health and several factors played a part in it. But I now know that running out of fuel for myself wouldn’t have helped me at all. Without the right nutrients, you can’t really function super well.” She hopes that schools and athletic clubs today can help their young athletes get on the right track.
Plagued by injuries from the age of 15, she also dealt with endometriosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and glandular fever. They all made training and competing so much harder.
Determined to continue, she managed another personal best jump of 1.85m in 2015 and placed eighth at the World University Games in South Korea.
The next few years were equally challenging for O’Hagan, but with the support of family, friends and her Wellington coach/confidential Mike Ritchie, she overcame her eating disorder and learned to love herself and the way she looked.
Always interested in crime, O’Hagan completed her studies in criminology and anthropology at the University of Victoria and worked as a probation officer. “Then I took a step back and realized I wanted to keep doing athletics,” she says.
O’Hagan retired from work and decided to move to Christchurch during a backpacking vacation in Southeast Asia in 2019 to train with Olympic high jumper Hamish Kerr and his coach, Terry Lomax. She thrived there.
She has completed another degree in human nutrition and now works with another nutritionist and fellow Commonwealth Games teammate, sprinter Zoe Hobbs. She hopes she can help more young athletes to refuel properly.
She’s also fitter and healthier: “I haven’t had any overuse injuries in the three years since moving to Christchurch.”
And she raises the bar to new heights. Following her 1.88m at the National Championships this year – her best jump in seven years – she appears to be in strong form for Birmingham, having completed 1.86m in Ireland last weekend.
O’Hagan can’t wait to finally take part in her first elite sporting event for seniors on Thursday, August 4 at Alexander Stadium, in the presence of her parents, Brent and Sue. She is aiming for a personal best and a place in the top six.
Although it’s 10pm in New Zealand, Andy Fraser will be recording O’Hagan’s event and broadcasting it on the school’s TV channel the following morning.
“You never pass up an opportunity to see our young people from Ōtaki excel,” he says.
“It is important that our students understand that where you come from and who you are does not dictate what you can achieve. They need to see people like Keeley on the international stage.
“Especially how she has learned to overcome her challenges, take care of herself and persevere. You couldn’t get a better role model for the kids to look up to.”