Goulburn’s Byron Hollingworth Dessent tells the Post about his outstanding six medals in six events, including a three gold haul, at the Australian Junior Championships earlier this month
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HAVING just returned from perhaps my busiest Australian Junior Championship, and the most successful so far…
Over the four days I had six events and came away with six medals. It was a total 10 races overall including heats and finals. To say I had nothing left by the last day is an understatement I had the 200m hurdles first up, not my finest as it’s not an event I have trained in at all so to come away with a silver was a pleasing result.
Next was the 100m relay. We had a very strong team. I was the final runner and we came away with a gold and a national record.
The big day for me out of all of my events was the 100m hurdles, this is an event I have been the national champion in the last two years so the pressure was on being the favourite, and to be honest I have had a few adjustments in my training and spent most of the season just not being able to crack a nice clean race.
I have changed my stride pattern and leg in the blocks which is like trying to write with your opposite hand.
It meant I had lost a bit of my power and had spent most of my training sessions just trying to get it right. They paid off though, and I came away as the 2015 Australian champion and a gold.
A 200m came after that in which I received a bronze, and a 100m for another bronze. The weekend ended with a 200m relay which resulted in another gold,
I have only been involved with athletics for a short time, this being my third year, and i’ve really only started to keep my flexibility and speed for rugby.
I’m really proud of my achievements so far. A lot of time and training goes into the athletic season and to have your hard work result in such reward inspires me to keep going.
I have to say by the end I didn’t have much else left. In the coming years I will have to cut down on some of my events and really focus on perhaps two, that way I will be a lot fresher going in which should result in even better results.
The exciting thing for me is my techniques are far from perfect and I have so much to work on. Hopefully if I can get all those coming off at the right time, and to continue to keep bringing my times down, this will lead to some exciting times in the future.
My age group is one of the stronger age groups coming through, and to keep on top of it there is no scope to back off at all, so it’s a very short break and back into it for the off season. With the rugby season ahead, there isn’t any time to take my foot off the pedal.
My future goal would be to make the Commonwealth Games. As soon as it was announced that it would be on the Gold Coast in our home country I have to say a ping of excitement resonated inside of me, but I may be a little bit too young ,which is okay because there are always goals to set and at the moment I’m enjoying every bit of what I’m doing and wouldn’t have it any other way .
I would like to thank my coaches in particular Bob Morgan who has played a massive part in my success, along with my family being my biggest supporters.
