A Dukie in Paris | Duke Mag

Former Duke track and field athlete Daniel Golubovic M.B.A.’17 will make his Olympic debut at the 2024 games, which begin Friday, July 26, in Paris. The decathlete, who will be competing for Australia, says the games will be the culmination of a long journey and thousands of hours of hard work that he says have gotten him where he wants to be.

DukeMag spoke with Golubovic as he was making his final preparations for Paris.

DukeMag: What made you want to become a track athlete?

Daniel Golubovic: I played just about every sport growing up – soccer, baseball, basketball, at least all the usual stuff. … I started going toward action sports, skating BMX in high school, got a dirt bike, motocross, looking for a bit of an adrenaline kind of kick. My dad said the deal was that I had to stay in a team sport for school. So, the only thing that the school offered that I hadn’t tried before was track and field and in my head, I was like, “I don’t want to run. Like nobody wants to go out and just run, right?” My dad basically handed me to the coach at my high school and said, he’s tall, he can run, put him where you need him, and he did. I started as a high jumper and I was very fortunate that my high jump coach also had a good relationship with the pole vault coach because again, with that adrenaline kick, right? I was like, “What’s the craziest thing I can do here? Throw myself as high as I can go,” and my senior year, I started pole vaulting. I picked it up quickly. My coach recognized it, and he started experimenting with me. Try discus at this meet, try long jump at that meet, try the hurdles here, and it kind of grew behind the scenes because I didn’t know what the decathlon was. He was testing me to gauge aptitude toward picking up new skills and things, and as the end of the year came around, he said, “I want you to try this. It’s called the decathlon. It’s a whole big challenge and I think you’ll like it.” And I did and it was fantastic.

DM: Your hometown is Los Angeles. Talk about your upbring as a child in California.

DG: I was born in Torrance, California, in the suburbs of LA, and because my dad was Australian, he had applied for and got my dual citizenship when I was a little baby. But upbringing-wise, I was definitely in the states through all my schooling years and sporting knowledge kind of came from the states as well, even through NCAA in university.

DM: You went to UC San Diego for undergrad in…