Nicholas Hough (NSW)

A talented junior, Nick Hough emerged in Little Athletics and GPS athletics competition for The Kings School. He was an all-rounder, competing in sprints/hurdles, jumps and the shot put. The persistant Hough stuck with the hurdles and now finds himself on the eve of his maiden Olympic apperance in Tokyo. 

He made his international debut aged 16, at the inaugural 2010 Youth Olympic Games, winning gold in the 110m hurdles. In 2012, he competed at the IAAF World Junior Championships winning silver in the 110m hurdles and running on the 4x100m relay which placed fifth. In 2013, while negotiating the senior hurdle height, he ran his lifetime bests in the sprints (10.39/20.66), securing semi-final places at the World University Games. He then received a call-up to run on the national 4x100m relay at the world championships.

In 2014, he made significant progress in his preferred event, the 110m hurdles. Starting the season with a best of 13.98, he eventually took this to 13.57 for fourth in the final at the Commonwealth Games. In 2015 the progression continued, running 13.52, then a stunning 13.42 at the national championships. The time moved him to number two Australian all-time and was the fastest by an Australian for over 18 years.

At the 2015 world championships, he was run out in the heats. Injuries in 2016 made it difficult to qualify for Rio. Domestically in 2017, he got back on track running 13.59 and winning his third national title. Chasing a qualifier in Europe for the IAAF World Championships he was down to 13.50, his second fastest ever time. Competing at his third World Championships in London, he was fifth in his heat, missing qualification for the semi-final by just 0.05 seconds. Two weeks later he competed at his third World University Games in Taipei, where he placed sixth in the final of the 110m hurdles equalling the best performance by an Australian in this event at the Games.

After a good 2017/18 domestic season which included a quick wind assisted 13.51, Hough was untroubled in winning his fourth national 110m hurdles title. In March he competed at the IAAF World indoors in Birmingham in the 60m hurdles and progressed to the semi-final with a time of 7.76, which was just outside the Australian record.

2019 saw Hough secure yet another national title before carrying a rich vein of form throughout the European season and into the 2019 IAAF World Championships, where he finished 8th in his semi-final. 

This led Hough to a pandemic-impacted 2020, before racing throughout 2021 as a model of consitency - rarely having a poor race. His fastest time of the season stands at the 13.51 (+0.8) he mustered at the Queensland Track Classic in March, and after securing the win at the national championships and Olympic trials - Hough secured a spot on his first Olympic team. 

His mother, Sue, competed at the World University Games and father, Anthony, was a 7676 point decathlete. In the mid-2015 he launched  Gradeproof - an app which improves your writing with better grammar and rephrasing. There are now over 100,000 users of the app. In late 2015 Nick and his business partner appeared on a Chinese reality television show, The Next Unicorn. They competed against 15 global entrepreneurs.