COAST ATHLETES AMONG MEDALS
THE Australian Combined Event Championships have been held in Brisbane, not that anyone outside of track and field knew about it.
It seems to have been a very well-kept secret.
With 100 athletes competing across six age groups in both men and women, it was a terrific opportunity to show an athlete’s all-round ability. It was also an chance for athletes with an eye on Olympic qualifying to give it all they had.
Unfortunately, with the extremely wet weather in the lead-up and the atrocious heat that was delivered, it was not ideal conditions.
With this aside many athletes had outstanding performances. The multis do not get many opportunities to compete due to the preparation, physical demands and the demands of officials needed to conduct it.
The multi events in track and field consist of the decathlon for men over the age of 15, and the heptathlon for men under 16 years and all women.
For each event, athletes receive points for how well they perform. It is a competition against the pointscore book as well as being against other competitors.
It is so important for athletes to do as best as they can in each event to ensure they achieve the best score possible.
This event provides coaches and athletes with a unique set of disciplines.
Having been involved in the multi events for most of my life, the training is much more extensive and the athlete needs to develop across a broader physical and mental spectrum than that of singleevent athletes.
It not only involves the physical side of the sport but
you have to work on the mental, technical and tactical requirements.
If you don’t do well in one event you need to have the mentally to leave it behind and move on to the next event with a new set of goals and a positive outlook.
A multi-event competition is far superior in terms of physical and mental demands than most other events, which limits the frequency of competition.
It presents a unique and particularly difficult challenge for competitors.
Multi-event training requires longer duration and more frequent training sessions across a broad range of physical and technical skill sets.
In the open men’s competition, Olympic and world championship representative Cedric Dubler was untroubled in taking out the national title, while the women’s competition was won by Tori West who scored 6028 points for the first time.
This was the highest score by an Aussie in 12 years and the sixth-best score ever recorded by an Australian female.
In the under-age divisions, the Gold Coast region had three competitors who won medals in their respective age groups. Archie Jasinski finished with a silver in the under-16 men’s heptathlon while Zane Eldridge finished with a bronze in the same age group.
Emelia Surch finished with a bronze in the under-18 heptathlon.
We must remember that this was a national competition, so they should be extremely proud of their performances.
I caught up with the three of them talk about their performances. All completed the heptathlon this year with the boys stepping up to compete in the decathlon in 2021.
I asked all of them why they chose the heptathlon as their event, and they all responded that they were not exceptionally talented athletes in one event but across the many events of the heptathlon, they were very competitive.
Emelia is the exception – she’s a national medallist in the sprint hurdles.
All of the athletes seem to have “played’’ with a lot of the events since being involved in Little Athletics at a young age but all are reasonably new to the concept of multi events.
Archie who has only started to learn to hurdle and under his coaches Sharon and Peter Hannan, did four personal bests in Brisbane.
Zane achieved five personal bests and improved by more than 1000 points from his 2019 performance to gain third.
Emelia has fallen in love with the “hep”, appreciating the time spent on each event and is excited to see how she can improve with more competitions under her belt.
When I asked the boys about their intention of continuing into the decathlon with the inclusion of pole vaulting, both said they intended to start soon and it would definitely be a challenge.
Archie’s response to whether he was looking forward to it was: “Truthfully, not really.”
This is something that many boys struggle with when transitioning from seven events to 10.
The most challenging event is the pole vault because it is such a technical event and to be truthful, yes, is a bit scary.
Emelia and Zane expressed their dislike for the javelin. Both have had experiences of the javelin not landing tip first.
During nationals, Emelia had two fouls for her first two attempts which meant her last throw had to count, otherwise she would not get any points.
Thank goodness, especially for her mum, who was biting her fingernails, she got it measured. Not the best throw but at least she didn’t lose sight of the national medal.
Zane has experienced a similar situation.
When asked what their favourite events are, they responded with different answers. Archie much prefers the sprints, high jump and long jump, while Zane’s favourite is definitely the long jump.
Not surprisingly, Emelia’s favourite was the sprint hurdles with the both long and high coming in next and then shot put.
Archie said one of his main challenges as an athlete was his flexibility, and I was pleased to hear he is working on this daily with his physio and strength and conditioning coach.
Well done. This is an area that most boys struggle with.
When asked about role models both boys said they just liked doing all the events and enjoyed the camaraderie that came with participating with the same group for two days.
Emelia mentioned world champion Katarina JohnsonThompson from the UK.
Being a multi-eventer myself, I am so proud of young athletes who take up the challenge of training for an event that is so diverse.
Archie and Zane are coached by Sharon and Peter Hannan. Emelia is coached by myself and Matt Stopel.
All have a great opportunity to hone their skills and make a mark in an event that Australia has a great history in.
Good luck to the boys in their challenge of pole vaulting and all the best to Emelia in her next challenge which will be the individual nationals in Sydney in late March.