Teenage athlete blitzing the volleyball world

By Kirra Livingstone

Our region has many talented senior players across its community, but there’s also exceptional teenagers achieving high levels of athleticism, while still in high school.

16-year-old Glasshouse Christian College student Olivia McKenzie started playing indoor and beach volleyball about three years ago and said she has been competing in elite comps from the start.

“I played my first nationals three years ago in Canberra for indoor, and I’ve done beach nationals three times since then,” she said.

In her most recent competition, which was a beach volleyball national in Gold Coast, her team came sixth out of 22 teams.

But it is not just national and state comps Olivia plays in.

Her long list of extracurricular activities includes playing for her school volleyball team, the Brisbane Easts Volleyball Club, and she also referees other volleyball games.

She also does elite level training in Brisbane and Mountain Creek at the Queensland Academy of Sport, which means she is travelling to Brisbane about five times a week, but Olivia said it is worth it.

“It’s kind of tricky, but a lot of trainings, and competitions and games crossover a lot so there’s days where I have to be in Brisbane and Sunshine Coast for training which is a bit all over the place,” she said.

To top off her great successes over her short but impressive volleyball career so far, she has been picked in the Sunshine Coast school girls’ team, which has a state competition coming in June.