New athletics club ready to step up its games
New door opens for Darling Downs’ athletes
ATHLETICS: Darling Downs Athletics Inc is officially up and running as organisers begin planning a summer timetable of events for members.
The new sporting body was launched at a question and information afternoon at The Glennie School on Sunday.
Darling Downs Athletics is a stand-alone Queensland Athletics-affiliated club open for track and field athletes from age 12 and up to masters’ level and is not connected to any school.
Toowoomba-based coach Tom Bradbury said the club was designed to attract athletes from the region interested in competing under one banner.
“The launch is a bit of a coming together of a number of coaches in the region under the auspices of Darling Downs Athletics club to help provide a pathway for athletes on the Downs to state level competition,” Bradbury said.
“The main tenure of the club is to actually build a community — an athletic community here on the Downs.
“With Janine Ritter and Natalie Wright coming on board we hope we’re going to have some really good administration to help pull the coaches together and offer great pathways for our athletes.
“We hope to have meets here at the Glennie track and grass-track meets at O’Quinn St throughout the summer so all the competition doesn’t have to be held in Brisbane.
“That way, giving our athletes here on the Downs better opportunities.”
President Janine Ritter and secretary-treasurer Natalie Wright will work in coming months on adding to Darling Downs Athletics’ official base and organising the club’s first meetings.
“We were quite pleased, considering everything, with the response and interest shown at our launch on Sunday,” Ritter said.
“Now we are looking to build on the momentum we are starting to gather through things like our Facebook page.
“We wanted to see first how things worked in with The Glennie School and we have a couple of mini-meets in the pipeline over summer.
“It’s all about getting established at the moment with some extra officials, and things like designing uniform logos.
“Further on we are also planning on participating in Brisbane competition.
“We are open to everyone from 12 years and up including AWD athletes and we are also fielding some interest from masters competitors.”