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Mitchell Watt (born 25 March 1988) is an Australian track & field athlete. His main event is the long jump and holds the current Oceania record for the long jump – 8.54m. He was the first ever Australian long jump medalist at a World Championship and was the silver medalist at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Watt started his athletics career very early and first started getting attention as a schoolboy at Brisbane Boys College, a prestigious private high school in Queensland. As a 13-year-old he competed in the GPS 100 m, 200 m, 400 m relay, 100 m relay, long jump, high jump, triple jump, shot put and discus, winning all of his events bar discus with a respectable 4th.
As a junior, he won the All-schools nationals in 1999 (long jump), 2000 (long jump), 2001 (long jump national, triple jump national and 100 m).
Rugby Union and Australian Football
Watt took an interest in Australian Football and Rugby Union in his later years of high school. He proved extremely versatile successful in both codes. In Australian Football he won two State Championships during high-school playing as ruckman.
In Rugby Union, he played in the outside backs and was vice-captain of the 1st XV. He was a member of the State team (Queensland Schoolboys squad), a team which several current Australian Wallabies played in.
Watt's first major championship was the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin where he won a bronze medal with a jump of 8.37. He backed this up with another bronze medal at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha.
He won the 2011 Australian long jump title with a personal best of 8.44 m, setting a stadium record at the Melbourne Olympic Park Stadium with the final jump of the final competition that was held at the venue.Johnson, Len (17 April 2011). Watt leaps 8.44m, Pearson scores triple victory as curtain falls on Melbourne's Olympic Park. IAAF. Retrieved on 23 April 2011.
Watt won silver at the World Championships in Daegu, with a jump of 8.33 m in an interesting competition where the winning jumps were made in the second round of jumping. The top three jumpers failed to improve on their first and second round jumps.
He won the silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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