Bulletin’s weekly Junior Sport column with former Olympian Glynis Nunn
Some of the Gold Coast’s top heptathlon prospects have opened up about their multi-discipline missions after successful campaigns at this month’s Australian Combined Event Championships.
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Two weekends ago, the Australian Combined Event Championships were held in Brisbane.
Not that anyone outside of Track and Field knew about it as 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 opportunity 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 the ideal conditions for top performance.
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.
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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.
Decathlon: First Day - 100m / Long Jump / Shot Put / High Jump / 400m
Second Day – 110 Hurdles / Discus / Pole Vault / Javelin / 1500m
Heptathlon: First Day – 100m hurdles / High Jump / Shot Put / 200m
Second Day – Long Jump / Javelin / 800m
For each event, athletes receive points for how well they perform. It is a competition against the points score 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 single event 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 have to have the mentally to leave it behind and move onto 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 puts her in a position of being the 6th best score ever recorded by an Australian female.
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In the under age divisions, the Gold Coast region had three competitors who medalled in their respective age groups. Archie Jasinski finished with a silver in the U/16 Men’s Heptathlon while Zane Eldridge finished with a bronze in the same age group.
Emelia Surch finished with a bronze in the U/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 being a national medallist also 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 hurdles under his coaches Sharon and Peter Hannan, did 4 personal bests in Brisbane.
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Zane achieved 5 personal bests and improved by over 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 were intending 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 7 events to 10.
The most challenging event is the pole vault as it is such a technical event and to be truthful, yes, is a bit scary.
Both Emelia and Zane expressed their dislike for the Javelin. Both have had experiences of the javelin not landing tip first.
During nationals, Emelia had 2 fouls for her first two attempts which meant her last throw had to count, otherwise she would not get any points.
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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 with the Javelin.
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 her him as an athlete was his flexibility, and I was pleased to hear that he is working on this daily with his physio and strength and conditioning coach.
Well done and this is an area that most boys struggle with.
When asked about role models both of the boys said that they just liked doing all the events and enjoyed the camaraderie that came with participating with the same group for two days.
Emelia mentioned Katerina Johnson Thompson from the UK who is the current world champion.
She is the favourite for the Tokyo Olympics and doesn’t seem to have too many weak events when she is competing at her best.
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With personal bests of 1.98cm for the High Jump, 22.79 secs for the 200m, 6.93m for the Long Jump, 13.86m for the Shot Put and 2.07.26 secs for the 800m, she would certainly be a finalist, if not a medallist in most events in our Australian individual championships.
She is certainly someone to follow.
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.
Both Archie and Zane are coached by Sharon and Peter Hannan while 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.
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Following up my article last week – thank you for the well wishes from people in relation to my health, but I was particularly pleased with the number of applications for the Carbine Club scholarship program.
Please remember, if you don’t apply, you will never know if you were a candidate for a $5000 scholarship.
This scholarship is to help an athlete progress and train within their chosen sport. It can cover a multitude of expenses that deal with training and competition.
A clearly positive connection with people and givers that helps to offer an athlete the opportunity to progress further in their sport. I cannot stress enough how special this opportunity is.
Take the challenge – contact the Academy and find out more.
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Coming up in the next few months we also have programs involving Hockey, a program called “Future Stars” which enables athletes outside of our regular programs to become involved with the professional approach to training and competition.
In the past we have had Track and Field athletes, Ice Hockey, Cheering, Basketball, Go karting, Triathlon, AFL and other sports as part of this program.
Inquire through our website for further details as this program offers a six-month program and membership to the Southport Sharks gym.
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