BALLARAT'S jumpers are leaping to the top of the country, with four Ballarat Regional Athletics Centre athletes ranked on top of Australia.
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Triple jumpers Mackayla Culvenor and Molly Fraser are both all-schools and national champions, while high jumpers Lachlan O'Keefe and Yual Reath find themselves hitting the heights.
Fraser, who competes for Ballarat Harriers, early this month won a gold medal in the women's under 18 triple jump at the national championships in Brisbane, jumping a personal best of 12.30m.
Culvenor, from Wendouree Athletics Club is the Australian all-schools champion in the triple jump as is her club mate O'Keefe in the high jump, while Reath, also from Wendouree is one of the country's top high jumpers having won a national championship and represented Australia at both Oceania and World Championships.
Wendouree coach Paul Cleary said Ballarat athletics was in a golden era, particularly in jumping events.
"I'm a big believer in success breeds success and to see we've now got four with national gold medals, all the younger ones look up them like they are absolute legends," he said. "They see these guys, these four, work really well. Yual has just come on in leaps and bounds and Lachlan, you knew from day one, he's always been right there.
"The two girls are both brilliant. Mackayla is almost 15 and has won Australian All Schools back in December and Molly has just won in the past couple of weeks.
"They've come at different times, but they've all just been brilliant. Mackayla originally came here with some friends to learn to run relays and had a go at triple jump and saw she was made for it. Molly, has just improved out of sight."
In all, young Ballarat athletes brought home seven medals for the national championships.
Meanwhile, rising star Eleanor Downey has produced an incredible performance at the Australian Little Athletics Championships, winning a gold and four silver medals at the event in Melbourne.
Competing in MC1, Downey won a gold in the 400m, running a time of 73.74 seconds. She won silver medals in a range of disciplines including the 200m in a time of 32.40 seconds. She also won silver in the javelin with a throw of 9.16m, the long jump in 3.25m and the 100m in 15.79 seconds.
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