Geelong teens Karla Boras, Miller Smith, Jemima Hood win gold at 2025 Australian Junior Athletics Championships

Karla Boras landed the biggest win of her jumping career at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships, while two teen hurdlers broke through for gold-medal winning performances.

Geelong's Karla Boras celebrates long jump gold at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships in Perth. Picture: supplied

Karla Boras arrived in Perth for the Australian Junior Athletics Championships with her sights firmly on triple jump gold.

What the 16-year-old didn’t expect was to leave with two gold medals and a new personal best, putting a tough season of results in the long jump behind her with an inspired final jump to finish her season on top of the dais.

With her previous best result at nationals a bronze in the U14s triple jump final in 2021, the emerging Geelong athlete was confident her strong season form in the triple jump would hold her in good stead of challenging for U18 gold this year.

Geelong teen Karla Boras jumps for gold at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships. Picture: Scott Sidley/Athletics Victoria

Boras’ only legal jump on her third attempt in Sunday’s final was all that was needed to take out first place, her 12.41m effort besting fellow Victorian Allegra Orso (11.99m) by close to half a metre.

Backing it up on Monday with the long jump final, Boras landed a personal best 5.90m (+1.8) on her fourth and final attempt to comfortably take out gold, her third jump of 5.83m also well ahead of runner-up and Tasmanian Bailey Van Den Broek (5.69m).

“The long jump, I wasn’t expecting it because I hadn’t really got the results I was hoping for all season,” Boras said.

“I didn’t expect to win it, I was hoping for maybe a medal.”

Now Boras will look to follow in older sister Tiana’s footsteps and land a world triple jump qualifier (12.90m) next season, in a bid to book a ticket to the World Athletics U20 Championships in the US in 2026.

Tiana previously won bronze for Australia in the triple jump at the 2022 Worlds, and finished 12th at the 2024 edition.

“I think we do push each other, the competitiveness is there,” Boras said of their relationship.

“We go to training together, so it does make things easier.”

Travelling up to three times a week to work with Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Alwyn Jones at Athletics Essendon, while also training at Athletics Chilwell, Boras has seen the benefits in her performances after turning her attention to jumps five years ago.

But while the biggest challenge of Boras’ budding career in athletics so far has been balancing training with Year 11 studies at Sacred Heart College, alongside work and family and friends, the rising teen appears well on track to reaching her goals next season.

Barwon Heads' hurdler Miller Smith salutes at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships. Picture: Scott Sidley/Athletics VIctoria

Emerging hurdler beats cold to win gold

Loaded up on nurofen as he battled a race-day cold, Barwon Heads’ 400m hurdler Miller Smith says he chose to “run his own race” before executing his gold-medal winning performance in Perth.

Coming into the final with the fastest U18 seed time at last week’s Australian Junior Athletics Championships, Smith said he had felt confident targeting the gold, before getting struck down by the cold on the Tuesday morning.

“I was hoping to get the gold … my confidence was a bit less than (when getting sick) but I managed to steal the gold,” Miller said.

Smith needn’t have worried in the final though, eclipsing the field by more than 1.5 seconds to finish with a personal best 52.50 second run.

“I really didn’t focus on any of the other athletes, I just focused on my own race,” he said.

“I knew some of the athletes weren’t running their fastest times, but I didn’t know how much being sick would affect me.”

Smith capped of his championships with a bronze in the 4x400m later that day, running the second leg of a personal best 3:22.09.

Smith said he’d now target the U18 national record time of 51.6 – 0.9 seconds off his time in Perth – and qualifying for the U20 World titles in the US.

Geelong athletes star on national stage

Geelong's Jemima Hood at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships. Picture: Scott Sidley/Athletics Victoria

Fellow hurdler Jemima Hood brought home both individual and team national gold.

The Geelong Guild athlete claimed gold in the U16 90m hurdles final with a time of 13.0 into a huge headwind of -2.7, before clinching silver in the 200m hurdles final with a personal best 28.20.

Then, along with Geelong athlete Stella Peters, Hood closed out Victoria’s gold-medal winning U16 4x100m relay – the squad recording a time of 47.07 to beat out WA and Tasmania.

Geelong hammerthrower Summer Marange won silver and bronze at the Austrlaian Junior Athletics Championships. Picture: supplied

Among some other results, Geelong hammer thrower Summer Marange secured two podiums competing in two different age groups.

The 14-year-old claimed bronze in the U18 field, throwing a personal best 51.01m to achieve her season-long goal of cracking the 50m mark.

Then two days later, Marange took out silver in the U16 hammer throw with a 49.10m, rocketing into second with her third throw after two no-throws on her first and second attempts.

Meanwhile,hurdler Evan Bainbridge ran big personal bests to come home with two bronze – running a 14.04 in the U17 110m hurdles final and a 55.19 in the 400m hurdles final, while Oliver Schouten Durham claimed bronze in the U15 heptathlon, notching up personal bests in all seven finals.

Lachlan Thomas also claimed bronze in the U17 800m final, registering a 1.55.62 personal best.

Originally published as Geelong teens Karla Boras, Miller Smith, Jemima Hood win gold at 2025 Australian Junior Athletics Championships