BALLARAT has another national athletics champion with Ballarat YCW's Rose Ashman taking out the under-17s 3000m event at the National Athletics Championships in Adelaide.
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Ashman was dominant winner at the titles, winning in a time of 9 minutes 50.94 seconds, a seven-second personal best.
It was also a big week for rising sprint star Armani Anderson who battled a big head wind to run away with the silver medal in the under-18s 100m, finishing in a time of 12.47 seconds.
The time was more than half-a-second outside the 16-year-old's personal best of 11.91 seconds, but coach Gerrard Keating said the tough conditions had made racing hard.
The winning time was by Amaya Mearns from Queensland in 12.40 seconds, almost .7 of a second below her personal best. Anderson and Mearns had gone head-to-head across the championships with Anderson getting the nod in the heats.
Anderson's coach Gerrard Keating said he hoped the result would see his charge named in the Under-18 Oceania Championship team for the event in June.
"They've said they are keen to take the top two, I hope this result gives Armani an opportunity," he said. "The under-18s are going to be run alongside the open, so it would be great to have Armani to be able to rub shoulders with the elites."
One runner Keating is keen to catch-up with is his former charge Torrie Lewis, who at the weekend defeated the 100m world champion over 200m at a Diamond League meeting in China.
He said Anderson and Lewis were slightly different athletes in that Anderson is more a natural 100m sprinter, whereas Lewis is arguably better suited to the 200m distance, despite already being Australia's quickest ever over the 100m.
The junior results come after a huge week for Ballarat Athletics which saw both Cooper Sherman (400m) and Yual Reath (High Jump) take open gold medals, while evergreen Kathryn Mitchell won silver in the javelin.
All three could now be in line for an Olympic berth this season and all three should be named for the Oceania Championships which is the major lead-in event to the Olympics.
"Realistically for Ballarat to have a 2.30m high jumper, just blows me away, he's world class now, the team of Yual and Paul Cleary is just phenomenal," Keating who made two 100m Commonwealth Games finals said.
"Then to see Cooper, to have another sprinter, for me to see that now and see someone dominating on the national stage, I'm just so, so proud of him. Every comp her goes to he's running in the Ballarat Harriers singlet, it's so great to see.
"And Kathryn is just such a professional, it would be wonderful to see her at a fourth Olympics
"Athletics is such a hard sport, it's so great to see so many Ballarat athletes at the top in this country."
