Five Jimboomba athletes will represent Australia in July.
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Tianah List, Camryn Newton-Smith, Ashley Moloney and Mitchell Fekete will represent their country at the Oceania Youth Championships in July, while Nathan Wilkins will compete at the World Junior Championships in Poland.
List will compete in open javelin, Newton-Smith in under 18s heptathlon and long jump, Moloney in under 18s octathlon and triple jump and Fekete will compete in hammer throw.
Wilkins will compete in hammer throw in Poland and recently achieved a personal best throw of 69.09m in Melbourne.
List has represented Australia before, while Newton-Smith, Fekete and Moloney will represent the nation for the first time in their athletics careers.
The trip to Fiji for List, Fekete, Newton-Smith and Moloney comes just weeks after the four athletes were selected in Athletics Australia high performance development squads. List in the under 19 talent squad and Camryn, Mitchell and Ashley in the under 17 squad.
List will be the experienced hand among the four athletes in Fiji, having competed at Oceania level previously.
“It’s my second time at the Oceania championships, after competing in Cairns, I came away with a gold in the under 18s and a championship record, and a bronze in the opens,” she said.
“It’s any athlete’s goal to represent their country it’s one of the highest things you can do.”
Newton-Smith said she is confident of strong showing in Fiji, especially if she can make a solid start to the seven-event heptathlon
“Hopefully I’ll place, I want to go for gold in heptathlon, and hopefully top three in long jump,” she said.
“Probably the first event, hurdles straight up, and probably the first event the next day in long jump, and second event on the last day javelin would be my strong points.”
“It’s an amazing feeling getting to wear the green and gold I’m pretty keen for it.”
The championships will be Moloney’s first time out of Australia and he is viewing the competition as a way to gauge where he is at against his peers from around the Oceania region.
“My strengths would probably lie in the jump events, I’m not so good at throws but I’ll see what I can do, I’m hoping I’ll do well, we’ll see where I’m at,” he said.
National champion hammer thrower Fekete is confident ahead of what will be his first competition outside of our shores.
“I’ve got a new training schedule going with more weights incorporated so I should go well,” he said.
For each of the athletes the championships are a step towards a greater goal of one day competing at an Olympic games.
“2020 is four years away, so keep improving, it’s always a goal,” List said
“I feel like it’s a really big step towards ultimately where I want to end up, to me it’s the first kind of thing towards an Olympics and stuff like that, Tokyo probably may be reasonable,” Fekete said.
