Amanda Coombe competes in Australian Masters Athletics Championships despite barriers
From representing Australia at the World Championship, Amanda Coombe returns home to Tasmania to strive for gold despite the barriers she’s faced. See the photos from the Masters Games >>
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When Amanda Coombe was young, she was told she would struggle to play sports or drive a car because she was born blind in her left eye.
Now, the 56-year-old is one of the strong athletes competing at the 50th anniversary of the Australian Masters Athletics National Track and Field Championships at the Domain Athletics Centre.
“I’ve been running Masters since I’ve been old enough, which is 30 and I’ve been to world titles,” she said.
“I was told from a young age that I’d have trouble playing sports and trouble driving a car but I ended up as a PE teacher at The Friends’ School driving a minibus, and racing for Australia at World Masters and winning medals in relays.”
Despite being Tasmanian, Coombe moved to Sydney 12 years ago, leaving her with the hard choice to compete for New South Wales in the Womens 55-59 400m on Sunday at the Hobart Masters.
“I was toying with running with Tassie because I was going to run with some of my old teammates, but their bodies didn’t co-operate with them,” she said.
Tasmanian Cathy McKeown is juggling the busy role of Master’s competition director and still managed to win gold with a new personal best in discus.
“It was really good because I’m a competition director and my head is just a million things running through it all the time. I’m really surprised at how well I’m throwing,” she said.
Beating her Women’s 50-55 discus record of 31.63m, McKeown threw a winning 32.66m.
“It’s super special to win and be here on our home ground and for everyone to be enjoying our state,” she said.
About 680 athletes are competing across more than 2500 events over the four day national championship.
“We were extremely happy to have so many people come to Tassie. Last time we hosted we had just over 500 people,” McKeown said.
Dominic Carr, who is dabbling across many events over the weekend, is visiting Hobart for the first time.
Having been competing in National events on the mainland since he migrated over from India, Carr said it’s about community.
“I’ve created so many bonds with different people. I see so many people after two years from different states and countries and an event like this is so great to catch up,” the 54-year-old said.
“I use these events to come out and see how I go against other people. It’s all about having fun.
“I’ve been doing Nationals for about 14 years now and this is one of the best organised events I’ve seen. All the small things have made a massive difference.”
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