Jimboomba Athletics Club continues to produce state and national champions.
The latest round of national champions Camryn Newton-Smith, Ashley Moloney, Benjamin Roberts, Ashley Fekete, and Felia Kia who are all members of the club earned their titles at the national titles in Sydney late last month.
Fekete won the under 18s hammer throw title, Felila Kia won both the under 15 discus and shot put events, while Moloney won the under 18s decathlon, Newton-Smith the under 18s heptahlon and Roberts the under 16s javelin.
Newton-Smith, Moloney and fellow Jimboomba athlete Talosaga Kia will now go on to represent the country in Fiji at the Oceania championships in June.
Roberts won his second national javelin title with a throw of 50.37 metres and said he knew he was in the running from the moment the javelin left his hand.
“I was sort of confident, I knew I had done it before and that my PB (personal best) was already better than everyone else’s so I knew I could the better throw,” he said.
“When I threw it felt good, it felt like it would fly properly.”
“My goal now will be to compete at the youth commonwealth games.”
Moloney said once the Oceania event in Fiji was done he would maintain his fitness and look to improve in the areas of the decathlon, where he needs to make ground to maintain his title as a national decathlon champion as he moves into the under 20s age group.
“During the off-season, I have to maintain fitness and get some strength which will hopefully help me achieve more PBs next season and probably pick up on my pole vault which was a little bit sloppy at the nationals,” he said.
After a strong showing in the hurdles Moloney said he knew he was in with a chance of winning a second national title but he just tried to focus on his performance in each of the ten events.
“I probably made the most ground over the hurdles and I picked up quite a few points in the shot put,” he said.
“I felt like I was high in the points but I was just focusing on the next event.”
Newton-Smith who took out the under 18s heptahlon title, her third in the multi-sport event, also picked up a silver in the 100 metre hurdles said getting the training mix right is the hardest aspect of being a multi-event athlete.
“There is so many events that you have to do so you have to have your days with what your doing on what day and you’ve got to do it in the right order, because if you do a hard thing before a more technical thing your’e not really going to have the energy to want to do it afterwards,” she said.
“So you have to do your technicals, so your throws first, and then your running, you have got to do it in the right order otherwise you’re just not going to train properly.”
