Stephanie Morton is no ordinary track cyclist. An avid badminton player, proud Paralympic gold medallist and lover of Mexican food, the good-natured athlete is upbeat and unassuming. While training partner Anna Meares exudes an aura of intensity, Morton sports a perpetual grin.
The 25-year-old has plenty of reasons to smile after enjoying a memorable past four years. From London 2012 Paralympic success as an able-bodied pilot rider to Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow, Morton has rapidly become one of the cycling world’s fastest female sprinters. She even has an Order of Australia Medal to show for these efforts, awarded following the Paralympics for her “service to sport”.
Morton laughs when asked about this Australia Day honour. “I was taken aback,” she says. “I remember on the day listening to all the other medallists and their achievements – scientists, environmentalists, doctors – all these people doing such incredible things. And it took me a while to appreciate that we also deserved to be there. It is pretty cool, something I will be able to tell my kids about one day.”
Her atypical introduction to track cycling will provide another story for future children. Morton jokes that the sport “found me”, with a relative suggesting at a family function that she check her physical output on a stationary bike “for a laugh”. Although initially hesitant to pursue cycling – 15-year-old Morton was playing state-level badminton at the time – the family member’s encouragement saw her compete at a local championship.
“I kept dabbling with both, but then made the state team for the [junior] track nationals,” Morton explains. “I medalled there, and thought maybe I do like this sport after all. So I dropped badminton.”
While the South Australian offers this background in a blasé tone, it seems remarkable that one of the nation’s best sprinters may have never stepped onto a velodrome had it not been for the fortuitous intervention of a relative. Such an alternative reality was avoided, though, and Morton quickly rose through the cycling ranks thanks in part to her previous sporting endeavours.
“My badminton experience made the transition easier because I was accustomed to training and had some explosive fitness,” she says. Morton’s immediate family are badminton tragics – “my dad was the assistant coach, my mum was the manager and my brother and sister both also played at state level” – and the cyclist admits to missing the sport. While a “difficult knee” prevents her from having a hit of badminton in the build-up to Rio, Morton confides that she is eager to get back on the court post-Olympics.
Morton’s unorthodox start to her cycling career continued when she was contacted prior to London 2012 about joining the Australian Paralympic team. Visually impaired rider Felicity Johnson required an able-bodied tandem pilot, and Morton – then on the edge of the national sprint squad – accepted the invitation.
Entering the Paralympics as world champions and world record holders in the one kilometre tandem time trial, Morton and Johnson won gold at the London velodrome. Morton admits to feeling a mixture of relief – in light of the pressure of expectations – and joy after helping her colleague to victory.
“It was very satisfying,” she says. “Felicity had won silver at Beijing, and my job was to help her fulfil her dream [of gold], so I was stoked. As corny as it sounds, that was really special.” While her year away from the Olympic sprint team may have slowed her development in that discipline, Morton argues that what she gained from the Paralympics made up for any time lost “tenfold”. “I would not change it for the world,” she says.
Morton also highlights the perspective she gained by working alongside “inspiring” Paralympians who live with disabilities yet still compete on the international sporting stage.
“The biggest thing I took away from it was the life experience,” she continues. “The people you come across in that environment and the hardships they overcome make the things we get caught up with in our life look so trivial.”
Back on the single bike, Morton swept the 2013 Track National Championships – securing the team sprint, individual sprint and keirin titles – before winning sprint gold at the Commonwealth Games the following year. While she demurs when asked if that victory was her greatest to date, noting “different races are special for different reasons”, Morton speaks passionately of her success in Glasgow.
“The Commonwealth Games gold proved to the world that I was not just a tandem rider: I could mix it up with the best, including Anna [Meares] as reigning Olympic champion,” she explains. “That put me in my own light as a good sprint racer.”
So, finally, to the elephant in the room: Morton’s relationship with the recently-named Australian flag bearer for Rio. A two-time Olympic gold medallist, five-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist and 11-time world champion, Meares is a living legend of Australian cycling. She is also Morton’s friend, team-mate, training companion and rival.
“It is an unusual situation,” Morton concedes. “When we go away we are room-mates, and the team sprint is always first so we are team-mates. Then we go into individual mode and become competitors [for the individual sprint and keirin events].
“We get along really well – we train together every day and I probably see Anna more than I see my family,” she continues. “We are both big enough to understand that [racing against each other] is the reality of what we do, and nothing personal. Sometimes Anna wins, sometimes I win – and that pushes us both to be the best we can be.”
Meares famously once signed a cap for Morton with “Maybe one day you’ll beat me”, expecting to have retired before such a point, only to be defeated by her protégé on several occasions. While Morton admits that she still has the cap, she jokes: “I don’t wear it around training too much!”
Each day when Morton attends Cycling Australia’s High Performance Unit in Adelaide, she must pass along the recently renamed Anna Meares Way before arriving at the velodrome. Is that not daunting, to face off against a rider so iconic she even has the approach road named after her?
“When we race each other I try to forget that I am racing Anna Meares, and just look at the race tactically – what are her strengths, what are her weaknesses,” says Morton. “I think it is great that the velodrome road is named after her, she is such a decorated athlete and a real ambassador for our sport. For me it is an honour that I have been able to train and race with one of the greats. She has helped me become the athlete that I am today.”
In the past four years, Morton has won gold medals at both the Paralympic and Commonwealth Games. She now heads to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro looking to add a third to this unique collection, with Meares as both a team-mate and competitor.
“Just getting to Rio is a huge achievement, so to win a medal would be unreal,” Morton says. “I would be speechless. But why stop at one? The next thing would be to aim for more. I am still only 25 and have plenty of development to go. Watch this space.”
