Pamela Turney has been involved in Australian athletics for more than 30 years. 20265 Picture: Luke Plummer
By Casey Neill
OLINDA’S Pamela Turney was surprised and humbled to learn she would be honoured in this year’s Queen’s Birthday awards.
Ms Turney received an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for her service to athletics as a coach, selector, administrator and mentor.
“I was excited, probably more surprised than anything, because in the sport part of it there are so many volunteer coaches,” she said.
“You feel humble that you have got the honour out of all of them.”
A European holiday meant she was overseas when the awards were announced.
As she prepared to board her flight, Ms Turney also learned that one of the 20 athletes she currently coaches, Lisa Weightman, had made the Australian Olympic team.
Weightman is the fourth athlete Ms Turney has trained to Olympic competition.
Her focus is on middle and long distance running, from 800 metres to marathons.
Now in her 70s, Ms Turney became involved in Australian athletics when she, her husband Bob and their three daughters emigrated from England in 1972.
Her daughters, then aged four, seven and 11, had been involved in swimming and running back home and used their athleticism as a way to make friends.
“When we got here we knew no one so, as an outlet, they joined a swimming club and a running club and I’d already been helping the club I was with in England and I just automatically started doing it here,” she said.
Ms Turney was awarded an Athletics Australia Merit Award in 1994 and was named Athletics Australia coach of the year in 1999.
She received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 as an Australian who had made the country a nation of sporting excellence.
Ms Turney has been an Athletics Australia selection committee chairwoman since 1996 and was a team selector between 1986 and 2005.
The level five qualified coach is a life member of the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association and the Knox Athletics Club.
She was the 1982 Australian Commonwealth Games team middle and long distance coach.
“Taking an Australian team away is one of the biggest honours you can have,” she said.
Ms Turney said coaching was her first love.
“Even getting a girl who’s never going to run for Australia to run her best gives me almost as much pleasure (as getting an athlete to the Olympics),” she said.
