Olivia Skellern’s (Bunn ’96) passion for the Equestrian sport of Eventing began soon after she left St Catherine’s. For a period of 15 years she competed in, and managed, an internationally successful Equestrian team.

At the age of 19, her hard-work and commitment to the sport paid off. Olivia was named the youngest member of the Australian Eventing team to compete at the world championships in Rome, Italy in 1998. This was a phenomenal experience for her, and also earned her the best-performing Australian team member, placing Olivia seventh in the world. Her Equestrian career blossomed from there taking her to not only the Athens Olympic Games, but also the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. Other competition highlights included another World Championship and a World Cup final.

Olivia’s commitment to Equestrian pursuits saw her defer her Engineering studies. She returned to complete a Bachelor of Applied Science and later an MBA at Monash University. She is now very involved in her family farming enterprises, focusing on agriculture, primarily in wine grape production, broad acre grain farming, meat and wool production.

Olivia is a sought after personality on the public speaking circuit. Not only does she share her Olympic experiences, but she has also lectured Equine students at Charles Sturt University on preparing horses for Eventing. She has also been interviewed extensively for radio, television and print media.

Olivia continues to be involved with Equestrian at a grassroots level through coaching in the Riverina and also in an advisory capacity regarding the preparation of the team for the Olympics and analysis of the high performance plan. She lives in the NSW Riverina and is married with two children.

November 2015