MOVE over, Gout Gout.
The newest athletics sensation is our very own Jack Barry, who last weekend claimed three gold medals at the Australian Little Athletics Championships in Adelaide.
Barry’s gold rush came in the 200m hurdles and 400m with the budding athletics star recording a new personal best in the former, while his Victorian relay team also claimed gold in the 4x100m relay.
He also earned himself a silver in the 1000m relay to top off the 14-year-old’s successful weekend, a weekend that Swan Hill Little Athletics centre president Steve Colombo believes is a record breaking one.
Barry wasn’t on his own in representing our region, with fellow St Mary MacKillop College Year 8 student Kayla McInerney also representing Victoria at the championships, where the 13-year-old claimed a silver medal in the 4x100m relay.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever had an athlete perform at that level and that well in our club’s history, I certainly can’t think of anyone in recent history that has won three gold medals at the one championships anyway,” Mr Colombo told The Guardian this week.
“It’s been a significant year of development, both Jack and Kayla have put in the hard work and they are both leaders amongst all the athletes locally for that reason; they work hard, they dig deep, and they perform on a national level.
“We’ve had Emma Berg, we’ve had Liam Shadbolt recently do some really big things, but Jack and Kayla I guess are the two significant standouts at the moment.
“There’s a couple of other athletes that are hopefully not far behind them that will join them next year, but to jump fourth in the nation and back it up with a silver medal in the relay, and then for Jack to win three golds and a silver, it’s mind blowing, the achievement and the result that they’ve had.”
Along with her silver medal in the relay, McInerney also came agonisingly close to taking home the bronze medal in her pet event – the long jump – with her mum Caroline both impressed and proud following Kayla’s first national championships.
“We’re very proud (of Kayla), to come from the country with limited training compared to her city counterparts, it’s pretty amazing what both she and Jack have done,” McInerney said.
“Kayla has done a lot of gym work over the last two years and spent a lot of nights here at Ken Harrison on the jump pits.
“The dedication she has to improving herself and being the best she can is incredible and we all very proud of her.”
While Barry and McInerney’s new bling would surely have impressed their classmates back at school, their achievements didn’t come by accident, with hours of training, dedication and outright hard work required by the pair to reach their lofty heights.
For Barry, it meant scouring the state looking for a coach that could help him reach his potential, with mum Donna Barry engaging the services of Melbourne athletics coach Robbie Spencer in October last year.
“I’m incredibly proud, it’s been a seven month journey for Jack to get to where he is now, which we did not expect at all,” Ms Barry said.
“It’s been good. He has put in the work and it’s paid off, but it’s only because he’s so dedicated; he trains in the backyard just about every day to be honest.
“Jack and I talked about the fact that if he wanted to continue, that I could only do so much with YouTube as my friend so we needed to look at trying to find someone as a coach to help him.
“We saw that Robbie Spencer was up in Mildura and was doing some stuff up there, so I took Jack up there to meet him and spend a couple of hours with Robbie.
“We’ve done everything virtually since then and we’ve met about four times in person for training, but the rest has been online, including the program that Robbie drew up for Jack for the seven weeks from the states to the nationals.”
Spencer’s influence doesn’t just stop with young Jack, with the McInerneys also engaging his services after being recommended by the Barrys.
As such, an opportunity will now present itself for the entire Swan Hill Little Athletics community, with Spencer now committing to coming to Swan Hill once a month to help train the region’s next generation of champions.
“The club is going to take on Robbie’s services moving forward so that all local athletes can get some elite level training as well,” Ms McInerney said.
“He’s going to come up to Swan Hill once a month, which is fantastic for all the local kids, as otherwise Jack, Kayla and anyone else who wants that elite level of training would have to travel to Melbourne once a month.
“We would be prepared to do that, mind you, but having him come here means that other kids can access his services also.
“There’s so many young kids, all the way down to six-year-olds.
“The numbers are huge and we want to keep them all interested in the sport, which has been a problem in the past when we haven’t had that elite training pathway until now.”
