Athletics Australia All Schools Championships; WA Athletics Stadium – Perth; 8-10 December, 2023
Andres represented NSW in the U16 100m hurdles and U16 200m hurdles. He was selected in the 6-member U16 4x100m relay squad, but was not chosen to run on the day.
Results: Bronze medal in 100m hurdles; 5th in 200m hurdles
Full results: 2023 Australian All Schools Athletics Championships
Live streams:
Trip report
Normally athletes travel as a team for the Australian All Schools Championships, but given the event was in Perth and a lot of families expressed a desire to travel and stay together so they could holiday before or after the event – Athletics NSW gave us a choice this year. It was actually far cheaper for me to fly with Andres (using Frequent Flyer points) and stay in a hotel and even hire a car – than it was for him to travel with the team, so that’s the option we chose, staying at Scarborough Beach (on the recommendation of coach Andy!), which was a great location.
We flew in early Thursday morning, arriving in Perth just after 8am local time, picked up our car and then headed to Scarborough Beach for an early lunch (late by Sydney time!). We spent a bit of time at the beach before dropping Zak and family at their hotel in the city. We then returned to Scarborough Beach and checked into our hotel.
After doing some grocery shopping for meals, we drove the 15 minutes down to the track to check it out and for Andres to do a light training session to loosen up the legs a bit. I cooked some pasta for dinner which we really enjoyed, but found afterwards that the Scarborough Sunset Markets were on – with dozens of food trucks selling food from all around the world. We regretted eating a large dinner – we would have enjoyed eating some of the delicious smelling food on sale at the markets!
Friday morning was a fairly relaxed start. After cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast, we headed to the track to prepare for Andres’s 200m hurdles race late morning. We stayed at the track until mid-afternoon before returning to the hotel to relax. For dinner I cooked steak and sausages – which we both enjoyed.
Saturday was a bit of a sleep-in with Andres’s races not until late in the day. I was able to cook some more bacon and eggs for breakfast before preparing to leave. We got to the track late morning and didn’t leave until quite late. We then headed back to Scarborough Beach and met up with Zak’s family and with our coach Andy at his hotel to hang out for the evening and enjoy the sunset over the ocean.
Sunday morning saw us packing up and preparing to leave. We packed the car and headed to the track mid-morning. We ended up hanging out at the track until the end of competition – Andres had a great time catching up with his athletics friends and making new friends.
Given we weren’t flying out until around 10:30pm, we had nearly 7 hours to kill – so we drove to Fremantle to do some sightseeing. Andres fell asleep in the car – so I drove around Freemantle and the surrounding areas for a while before finding a park near the Freemantle markets. We walked around Freemantle for a while and stopped for some San Churro before heading back towards the airport, driving along the Swan River and through the City on our way, looking at more of the sights.
We got to the airport in plenty of time, dropped off the car and checked in for our flights. Andres spent the next few hours hanging out with some of his athletics mates while I read my book and caught up on some work emails.
Our flight was an overnight flight via Melbourne and so I didn’t get much sleep. Three and a half hours flight to Melbourne followed by about 45 minutes wait for our connecting flight and a further hour and twenty minutes flight to Sydney. We landed around 7:30am and after collecting our bags, we caught a train to Central and then changed trains to Artarmon. We arrived home just after 9am – took some time to unpack and shower and then slept until mid-afternoon!
U16 Men 200m hurdles 76cm
Andres’s last ever 200m hurdles race was a bit frustrating for him – he was aiming to 7-step the entire race, but never really got his stride pattern quite right and so struggled to maintain his pace. He was disappointed with the time and the position he came in the race, but pleased to finish uninjured.
| Straight final | 25.93 (+2.3) | 5th place |
U16 Men 100m hurdles 84cm
Andres was disappointed to not have both heats and finals for his last ever 100m hurdles races – straight finals are never ideal. Andres ran a really good race, avoiding distraction from competitors falling or hitting hurdles around him and finished strongly to take the bronze medal. He was really happy with the result and to take home his first National All Schools medal, but had been hoping to run a much faster time and a new PB, which he missed by only 0.04 seconds.
| Straight final | 13.25 (+1.1) | Bronze medal |
