Chris Mitrevski

After 10 years in the sport, at aged 20 Chris won his first national long jump title in 2017. Seven years on he will make his Olympic debut in Paris, after a personal best leap of 8.32m at the 2024 Australian Championships. The leap elevated Chris to number six Australian all-time and was the longest by an Aussie for six years. 

Chris' journey in the sport started after a year of Little Athletics in under-6s. After a break he returned as an under-10 and has been doing athletics ever since. His mum registered him as he was an ultra-competitive kid.

"I was okay as a junior and would regularly make finals but it wasn't until I was 20 years old before I won my first national title," Chris said.

In 2014, aged 18, Chris was third in the Australian junior championships (jumping 7.30m) and in his last year as a junior (2015) he placed fourth in the 100m and was second in the long jump. He closed his junior career with bests of 10.65 (100m), 21.17 (200m) and 7.45m (long jump).

In early 2016, before his 20th birthday, in his first six competitions of the year he improved his PB on five occasions. Staring with 7.45m, he leapt 7.47m, 7.70m, 7.72m and 7.75m. He finished fifth at nationals.

His 2016/17 campaign was just as good jumping 7.92m, then 7.97m and also a windy 8.05m. He won the national title, then mid-year at the World University Games he placed fourth.

With a home Commonwealth Games the goal of every athlete, Chris was up for the challenge, winning the trials and national championship with a PB 8.01m and a windy 8.09m jump. At the Games he placed sixth with a leap of 7.90m.

Unfortunately for Chris post-Commonwealth Games he went into a slump for the next two years. Leaping over 8.00 metres once, most jumps were around 7.60m, occasionally 7.80m. He placed fifth at the World Uni Games with 7.84m.

Chris reflected on this time.

"As many young athletes do, I was on a yearly upward trajectory up until 2018 and expected to keep it going. Unfortunately for a multitude of reasons I lost my way with jumping and wasn't able to execute a jump without over rotating and losing a lot of distance. You could say I had the yips."

"This slowly started to turn in 2020 and 2021 where I got back jumping over eight (metres) but I still didn't feel like I was jumping as good as I was capable of."

It had consequences.

"Unfortunately because of this I narrowly missed Olympic selection."

After plateauing for a couple of years with a technical issue, he bounded to new levels in 2022, including in one competition exceeding eight metres on every attempt, with a best of 8.21m. Mid-year he was selected in the long jump for the Commonwealth Games and World Championships. A PB 100m of 10.27, saw him also selected in the 4x100m relay for the Commonwealth Games.

In his debut at the world championships, he leapt 7.83m to place 16th, while battling an injury. Two weeks later he was ninth in the long jump final, after a qualifying round jump of 7.76m.

In 2023 Chris was regularly around the eight-metre mark. In Europe he jumped 8.19m windy with a slightly illegal wind of 2.2m/s. In August he was named in his sixth national team for the Budapest 2023 World championships. At the championships he leapt 7.99m in the qualifying round to miss the final by 1cm.