Ballarat wheelchair track racer Sam Rizzo has his sights set on the World Para Athletics Junior Championships after a successful season.
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Having trained with the under-17 para development squad at the Australian Institute of Sport in December, Rizzo went on to win silver and bronze medals at the Australian All-Schools Athletics Championships.
Other season highlights included winning the junior 10km international road race and breaking a national record in the under-18 T54 800 metres event at the Summer Down Under Wheelchair Road Racing Series.
“(Breaking the record) was something I wanted to do for a while but I was always just a bit off so it was definitely a good feeling,” Rizzo said.
The 16-year-old also won five medals at state level before competing at nationals in Sydney.
Rizzo said the inaugural world junior championships – to be held in Nottwil, Switzerland, in August – had one of the fastest tracks in the world.
“The harder the surface of the track, the less drag we get in the wheelchairs and the quicker we can go,” he said.
Rizzo trains under paralympic gold medalist Richard Colman as well as at the WestVic Academy of Sport.
His long term goals are to make the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics and one day win gold for Australia.
