Little Athletics NSW cancelled the Zone and Region championships for the 2020-21 season due to COVID-19 and then announced that entry to the Youth State Championships would be based on season best times for athletes. Times could be taken from any Little Athletics NSW carnival or event, plus they also allowed times from the 2020 All Schools Championship.
However, for those few U13 athletes who had not yet started High School in 2020 and were thus ineligible to compete at All Schools, they added an exception allowing times from Athletics NSW events to be counted – provided they were seeded events and run under the same specifications as those from Little Athletics NSW.
Andres fell into this category, and so we went looking for opportunities for him to compete in 100m and 200m races at Athletics NSW events. We also felt that it was important that he didn’t compete at the Little Athletics State Championships having not run in any competitions since February 2020.
Unfortunately, there were no equivalent 80m hurdles or 200m hurdles races for his age group – both are different specifications for Athletics NSW.
The first event Andres competed in was the 2021 Hunter Track Challenge at the Fearnley Dawes Athletics Track in Newcastle; 9 Jan 2021
Andres represented UTS Norths in the U16 200m sprint and the U16 100m sprint.
His times were both U14 national qualifiers for the Australian National Athletics Championships in April.
Men U16 200m sprint
Andres won his section with a huge new PB and placed 4th overall – the fastest U14 athlete.
| Timed final | 26.33 (+1.5); PB | 4th overall |
Men U16 100m sprint
Andres was placed in the B race, which he won with another huge PB.
| B race | 12.54 (+2.2); PB | 1st place |
