Halliday, hungry for more opportunities to compete at the top level

Kieran Halliday is a young vaulter, based in Western Australia. He competed this weekend in the Australian Vaulting Championships. Earlier this year he achieved a qualifying score to represent Australia at the FEI World Vaulting Championship for Juniors in Austria. His selection to represent his country as a junior individual vaulter is the crowning achievement of his junior vaulting career.

Kieran started his journey off with four weeks of training at Club Haus Getter in Münster, Germany. This allowed Kieran to bond and familiarize himself with his horse Mogli (World Wide 6).

He was lucky to train and spend this period at Haus Getter with Philipp Stippel, one of the selected German junior male vaulters and the German squad team. Dina Menke, the owner of Mogli, lunged for Kieran at the Junior Worlds. The training at Haus Getter allowed Kieran to experience the intense preparation the German coaches do before a major event and build up friendships that will last a lifetime.

Lani Maher, who assisted with his coaching and preparations, oversaw Kieran’s training in Germany. Kieran joined the touring Australian vaulters who where on a friendship vaulting exchange. His mother, Michelle Halliday, who is also his full-time coach, joined Kieran the week before the championships and left for Ebriechsdorf in Austria the weekend before the championships to join up with fellow vaulter Jean Betts and Chef d’Equipe Darryn Fedrick.

Standards in the individual classes were very high and challenged all athletes to dig deep and rise up to the challenge. Kieran’s first round in the compulsories went well, Kieran’s freestyle round was his best performance and a solid routine, which he is very proud of.

Kieran finished 22^nd overall against the best junior vaulters in the world.

He now feels he can draw on this experience from both the 2015 Team Zelos Australian squad and 2017 Australian individual representation to build his vaulting career further.

Kieran wishes to thank his mother Michelle, his preparation coach Lani and Dina with Mogli for making this dream come true, not forgetting those that donated and helped with sponsorship of his horse costs by Racing & Wagering WA.

View Kieran's interview at the Australian Vaulting Championships this weekend :