Mother of Aussie Olympic star Ash Moloney shares emotional 4am rant after son withdraws in Paris

The mum of Australian decathlete Ash Moloney has taken to social media to share her devastation after watching her son pull out of the Olympic event due to injury.

Alyson Moloney was watching from the stands in Paris as her son, a Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist, was forced to pull out after three disciplines of the Olympic decathlon due to an adductor injury.

Moloney was sitting back in 19th place after the opening three rounds on Friday – the 100m, long jump and shot put.

The 24-year-old has had a horror run of injuries and seeing it all end like it did was ‘heartbreaking’ for his mother – and she was also not happy with the circumstances surrounding it.

‘It’s 4am in Paris and I can’t sleep,’ she wrote on Facebook.

‘I am so heartbroken for my son. His first concern was for me and how much it cost, but money can be replaced, he can’t be. What’s more heartbreaking is the media.

‘One person points out that he missed a few decaths and that’s what they run with. It happens.

Moloney has had a shocking run of injuries in recent years

‘Blame the dodgy chicken not the athlete. They don’t know……. (Which is 2 years of BS I can’t mention) And they don’t know that he trains 6 out of the 7 days a week to sheer exhaustion, stripped back all his events including changing lead legs in hurdles and I’m absolutely sure they would have no idea that he came 4th at Gotzis, and won at the National Championships and the Oceania Championships since then.

‘Why get in the way of a good story. To finish off with, good luck to all our amazing athletes and especially our multi event athletes.’

Before the Games, Ash Moloney spoke about his changing relationship with his body. 

‘Being young and naive I thought I was bullet proof,’ he said.

The reigning Olympic bronze medallist was forced to withdraw before the high jump began

‘Now I have a much more stable training environment and procedures that I go through every single day.

‘Before it was just go harder, harder, harder, keep going until something breaks and then just pick yourself up and do the same thing.

‘After Tokyo I was busted. I couldn’t walk properly as it was an all-or-nothing sort of effort. Then I got to the world indoors (in 2022) and competed well but I really hurt myself in the high jump.

‘The knee which I had hurt in Tokyo, I did it worse and gave myself a little tear in the patella. After that it was kind of the same thing over and over. 

‘That was when I had five consecutive competitions in a row where I had to pull out because of my knee.’