Waverton rower, Balmoral Triathlon Club athlete win NewsLocal 2016 Junior Sports Star Awards for the Mosman Daily
TWO athletes who have represented Australia on the world stage have won the Mosman Daily’s 2016 Junior Sports Star Awards
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THE Mosman Daily’s 2016 Junior Sports Star Award winners are rower Pasha Bevan and in the Young Sporting Spirit category, triathlete Gabby Mastroianni.
Organisers of the NewsLocal awards announced the winners during a gala presentation evening in the Bicentennial Park Waterview conference centre on Wednesday night.
Pasha, 17, was among the youngest rowers on the Australian team when he competed in the World Rowing Junior Championships in the Netherlands last year.
The Waverton teenager trains on the Parramatta River and races at the Sydney International Regatta Centre.
Pasha is proud of having won many state and national titles for his school, Shore, and aims to make the Olympics one day.
“I like rowing because it’s quite physically challenging,” he said.
“It forces you to use pretty much every single muscle in the body.
“It’s also mentally challenging.”
Pasha has held the prestigious position of stroke, the lead rower who steers the crew, for his school’s 1st VIII team for two seasons.
Balmoral Triathlon Club athlete Gabby Mastroianni overcame serious injuries in a near-fatal race crash in 2014 to represent Australia last year.
Doctors told her she was “lucky to be alive” after her cycling accident while competing in Penrith.
“From this accident I had a heart contusion, which resulted in me being in the cardio ward for two weeks after, then having to wear a heart monitor every day for three months,” she said.
Gabby suffered serious whiplash; severe concussion; adrenal fatigue and constant dizziness; nerve damage; fractures in her ribs, sternum, right wrist and right ankle; a detached bicep; a ripped knee tendon, and third degree burns to her legs, stomach, and wrist.
“Because it was injury after injury after injury for two very long years, I was also getting more anxious and depressed with my life because I couldn’t compete or seem to overcome all the injuries,” she said.
But Gabby, 17, found the strength to recover and finished 10th in the 2016 Cozumel International Triathlon Union Aquathlon World Championships in Mexico.
She was also the first Australian home in her age group.
The 12th annual Junior Sports Star awards recognised outstanding young athletes aged from 10 to 16 across NewsLocal’s community newspapers in Sydney and the Central Coast.
More than 600 athletes and their families attended the gala event along with Renee Forth from the GWS Giants’ AFL women’s team, Sydney Kings basketball captain Kevin Lisch and 400m runner Jessica Thornton, a Rio Olympian, who won the Junior Sports Star medal in 2015.
The overall winner of the NewsLocal Junior Sports Star awards was Rio Olympics footballer Ellie Carpenter, 16, who also plays for the Western Sydney Wanderers.
Rebel is the major sponsor of the Junior Sports Star awards, while Simonds Homes sponsors the Young Sporting Spirit category.
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