It was a triumph over adversity for one Goulburn athlete after an 'amazing' performance at the Oceania Athletics Championships in Cairns.
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Joshua Kalozi donned the green and gold for two events, the Under 18 men's long jump and Under 18 men's 110 metre hurdles on June 7 and 9 respectively.
Safe to say the 17-year old surpassed expectations, winning the hurdles event and placing third in the long jump.
In doing so he also broke the Under 18 Oceania 110 metre hurdles record by 0.01 seconds, previously held by current Australian men's hurdles champion Nicholas Hough, with his time of 13.36 seconds.
Before Kalozi's golden run however he helped round off an Australian clean sweep of the long jump on day one, recording a 6.85 metre result behind lengths of 7.07 and 6.88.
After one day to recover from an injury sustained in the long jump, the Mulwaree High student laced up the shoes and beat fellow Australian runners Nathan Tavener and Rashid Kabba to take gold.
Speaking to the Athletics Australia website, Kalozi revealed he was just aiming to finish the race.
"In the lead up, I was aiming for 13.4ish and I knew the record was close to that," he said.
"After long jump with my injuries, I was hoping just to get through the race, so to come home with gold and the record is amazing," Kalozi said.
"Seeing Nick compete on TV last year at the Olympics was amazing. He's obviously a big inspiration coming from Australia. I've always seen him compete, so to take one of his records is big."
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