Personal Details
- Nickname:
Jem
- Hometown:
Melbourne
- Date of birth:
15th Feburary 1998
- Interests:
Passionate about sport, food & sustainability
- Height:
159cm
Sporting Details
- Diciplines:
20km Race Walking
- Teams:
Brent Vallance
- Career highlights:
A strong community-minded and busy person, race walker Jemima Montag strives for a well-balanced life.
While studying science at Melbourne University and until recently, working at a company who deliver food to underprivileged families, she is also an elite athlete in race walking, which requires many hours of weekly training.
Montag started her sport in Little Athletics at Brighton in the under 8s, and after struggles with events like jumps and throwing, realised she had slow twitch muscles and found her way into the technical endurance event of race walking. Aged 16, she made her first appearance for Australia, in the junior event at the World Race Walking Cup.
Just after her twentieth birthday, she made her Australian senior debut at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, where she would compete in just her third 20km walk.
Montag went on to win gold by a comfortable 88 seconds, an achievement she considers as her most memorable sporting achievement. This was followed by two outstanding performances in 2019, silver at the World University Games and tenth at the world championships – the highest place in this race by an Australian woman for 20 years.
Montag credits her grandparents, who are holocaust survivors for her work ethic and resilience. She says that when a training session or race feels tough, she thinks about them and reminds herself – “grit and perseverance are in my DNA.”
In August 2020 she was officially announced to make her Olympic debut in Tokyo.
Australian Olympic Team
