Official eye out for future champions
DEAN Grummitt was in the stadium on the night Aussie sprint star Cathy Freeman ran at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games but he believes the best part about being an athletics official is seeing the rise of a promising talent.
Grummitt, alongside fellow Far North athletics officials Andrew Ford, Heather Vaughan and Sue Slatcher, will be on the Gold Coast this week to see the first steps of the next generation of Australia’s athletics stars.
Grummitt is a veteran at officiating huge sporting events, working at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and will be a track umpire on the Gold Coast.
“I love seeing the up-andcoming athletes the most,” he said. “There will always be a young athlete that you will see for the first time at a Games and then you can follow their careers.”
Grummitt, who carried the Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton earlier this year, says watching Freeman win the 400m gold was special.
“That was a big night,” he said. “I was on the field events and we had just finished.
“I ran up into the stand and got a really good seat to watch Cathy run – I was right on the finish line.
“It was loud that night in Sydney and I think this one on the Gold Coast is going to be loud too, because you are fairly close in that stadium.”