By Glen Atwell
JORDAN Nelson and Siobhan Jagusch are on track to become the toast of Australian school athletics.
Jordan, Year 8 and Siobhan, Year 7, raced through qualifying at St Francis Xavier College’s Beaconsfield campus and will fly to Sydney this week to contest the National AllSchools Track and Field Championships.
The meeting, to be held at the Olympic Park Athletic Centre in Homebush, brings together the cream of the crop of Australia’s athletic young guns and both Jordan and Siobhan are confident of returning with the top prize.
Jordan will compete in the 1500metre, 3000metre and twokilometre steeplechase and is confident of adding to his already decorated trophy cabinet.
“My times have been good and I’m hoping to return with a gold medal, or two,” he said.
“We’ve both been training hard in the past few weeks and are ready to race.”
Jordan, a keen soccer player for Hampton Park, was the fastest qualifier for the steeplechase in Australia, running the gruelling twokilometre race in 6:31.
But the redhot favourite played down his chances.
“It’s a talented event; there are a lot of good runners in the race,” he said.
“My time was 20 seconds better than the next best, so I’m pretty confident of winning a medal.”
Siobhan will contest the 1500metre race and make her competitive debut over the threekilometre journey.
The pintsized pocketrocket is looking forward to the trip and running her best race.
“I ran the 1500 in 4:48 in qualifying, so I’m just hoping to do better than that,” she said.
“I won a threekilometre school crosscountry race in Adelaide last year, but I’m expecting the competition to be a bit tougher in Sydney.”
Both Jordan and Siobhan leave Melbourne tomorrow (Thursday) for the fourday meeting.
Jordan has a tough schedule, racing Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
“I’m running the 1500 on Sunday, but I’ll have to see how my legs and shins are and make a decision whether I can race or not,” he said.
Trish, Siobhan’s mum, coaches the dynamic duo and is confident their hard training will pay off.
“We train on and off during the leadup to an event and then every day two weeks out from the meeting,” she said.
Trish said young athletes had to find a balance between enjoyment and endurance.
“To keep enjoying what they are doing, you can’t train every day, not at such a young age anyway,” she said.
“We’ve found a (training) recipe that works and the kids are seeing the benefit, let’s hope it pays off in Sydney.”
