BALLARAT'S Roughead family is celebrating a new world athletics champion.
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Eleanor Patterson has captured gold as the first Australian to win the women's high jump in the IAAF World Championships.
The 26-year-old, who grew up in Leongatha, is part of the Roughead clan which includes Western Bulldogs 2016 AFL premiership player Jordan Roughead, who this season retired from Collingwood.
Patterson realised her golden moment in the early afternoon on Wednesday, Ballarat time, from purpose-built athletics stadium in Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon in the United States.
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She becomes Australia's 10th world athletics champion - the first since Kelsey-Lee Barber won women's javelin in 2019.
Ballarat's Jared Tallent has won three world championship silver medals in the men's 50-kilometre race walk and Steve Moneghetti has a world championship bronze in the marathon.
Patterson surged to the lead on a steamy evening for the high jump final with a first-up clearance at 2.02 metres - bettering her personal best by two cntimetres and equalling the national record in the process.
Ukrainian Yarolsava Mahuchikh was the only other jumper to get over at 2.02m, but she needed two attempts to achieve the feat.
Mahuchikh and Patterson then each missed three times at 2.04m, ensuring Patterson would win the gold on countback.
Patterson had earlier been on the brink of elimination, twice missing the height at 1.98m. Her personal best was 1.99m - a mark she beat twice to claim gold.
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