Hickie’s hurdles hunt has records tumbling

TASMANIAN athletics star Jane Hickie has had a year to remember, breaking several state athletics long jump and hurdles records.

The Collegiate student last week set an under-18 100m hurdles record with a time of 14.16sec at the Southern Sports Association of Tasmanian Independent Schools carnival.

Hickie then trumped her own record by .01 in the same event over the weekend at the state combine.

“It’s a good start to the season for me and good to know where I can build on,” Hickie said.

The 17-year-old smashed the previous state SATIS open girls long jump record of 5.49m with a jump of 5.60m at Saturday’s carnival. Hickie now has dreams of taking her athletics to the next level.

“I’d like to represent Australia,” she said.

“Hopefully at the world juniors or world champs but to qualify would be quite hard.”

Collegiate Secondary sports administrator Emma Johnson believes Hickie has the makings of a champion.

“She [Hickie] could go as far as she wanted to,” Johnson said. “She’s passionate about it and really enjoys it.

“What’s great is her willingness to help out with the younger athletes.

“She’s certainly got a promising career ahead of her.”

Hickie is preparing for the state and national All-Schools carnivals later in the year and admits athletics in Tasmania has a bright future.

“Competitively against the other states, we seem to be doing really well and pushing above our weight, which is really nice to see.”