Aidan James Murphy is a sprinter who was awarded a Tier 3 Scholarship within the 2023 Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship and Mentoring Program.
Born in Adelaide in 2003, as the son of former Australian Olympian and 100m Commonwealth Games medalist, Tania Van Heer, speed is in his blood. Aidan was encouraged to try an array of sports including surf lifesaving, BMX, tennis, football, and water polo and delayed any introduction to athletics until he joined the Saint Peters Athletics Club at 12 years old (2016).
After only a short while of training properly, Aidan was offered a Scholarship at Saint Peter’s College where the head coach was Tony Keynes. After a few years of hamstring injuries, before his 16th birthday (2019), he was already showing promise with times of 10.96 (100m) and 21.80 (200m). Before the 2019/20 summer season was shut down due to COVID, he also clocked an impressive 48.68 over 400m.
In early 2021, his progress was solid, with sprint times of 10.86/21.30/47.79. His 200m time was the most impressive and was achieved when placing second in the National U20 200m Championship. He missed the World U20 standard by just 0.02 seconds and selection in the Australian team which unfortunately didn’t travel to the World U20 Championships.
The results to-date showed little of what was to come over the summer of 2021/22 as he demolished his PBs and set records galore. Aidan said that his progress was the product of 10-months of unhindered training under the guidance of Victorian-based coach and Olympian Peter Fitzgerald.
Before the Christmas of 2021, Aidan had already run significant PBs of 10.64/20.64/46.31. Early in 2022 he ran 10.35 in the 100m and 20.41 in the 200m – the later breaking the Australian U20 record and becoming the seventh fastest open Australian.
He was now one of the best all-round Australian junior sprinters of all-time. In the 100m he was top-10 Australian junior all-time and in the 400m top-15 Australian junior all-time. He won the open Australian 200m title in April and Oceania title in June.
“I am honoured to be a successful SAHOF Scholarship recipient. To be selected by such a prestigious program is something that I can be proud of.” – Aidan Murphy on being selected as a 2023 Tier 3 Scholarship Holder.
Honours & Achievements
- 2022: Australian National Championships – 1st
- 2022: Oceania Athletics Championships – 1st
- 2022: South Australia State Championships – 1st
- 2022: State Multi Event Championships – 1st
- 2022: Adelaide Track Classic – 1st
- 2022: Australian National U20 Record – 200m
- 2022: Australian National U20 Record – 4 x 100m
- 2023: Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship Holder
Bio courtesy of Athletics Australia
