Olympians visit oasis in the desert

It is not often that a remote area of Australia has an Olympian visit their local athletics carnival. However, last week in the small South Australian community of Leigh Creek, not one, but two Olympians joined the community as the athletics for the outback program visited the oasis in the desert.

Last year the Athletics Australia athletics for the outback program visited the remote town of Marree and established links with a number of communities, creating a cluster of community schools involved in an athletics program. The program is in its fourth year and focuses on bringing together communities through sporting opportunities.

This year the Leigh Creek community was delighted when Catherine Freeman, Sydney Olympic 400m champion and Kyle Vander Kuyp Olympic 110m hurdler accepted invitations to attend a coaching and athletics carnival in the mining town.

Jarrod Sims, a talented decathlete seeking Olympic qualification joined coaches Barb Stephens and Don Brown, and Athletics Australia National Development Manager Sally McGrady on the seven hour journey from Adelaide on Monday 7^th April. Students from Marree Aboriginal School, Oodnadatta Aboriginal School, Leigh Creek Area School and Kuarna Plains Aboriginal School participated in a coaching program that included long jump, high jump, hurdles, discus and javelin and the education program continued with older students and community leaders from the area taking part in an orientation to coaching course.

Kuarna Plains Aboriginal School is situated in a disadvantaged suburb of Adelaide and it was great to see fourteen students from the school compete and socialise with the other schools. Don has been providing weekly coaching for all students at Kuarna Plains School and had the difficult task of selecting students to travel to Leigh Creek. The opportunity to meet their heroes Kyle and Catherine was a just reward for their hard work and dedication. The kids were able to put their skills they had learned into practice and were keen to show Catherine and Kyle the improvement they have made, particularly in Kyle’s favourite event the hurdles.

Even the smallest of students from Leigh Creek enjoyed the celebrity visit with Kyle taking grade 1 – 5 through their Active After School Activity while they waited patiently for the 2000 Olympic Games gold medallist to arrive.

The night before the carnival, a disco gave the students a chance to get to know each other and have some fun. The highlight of the night was some impressive disco moves from a former great, then it was off to bed to rest for the big day ahead.

Kyle and Catherine started the day encouraging the athletes to have a go and perform to their best, with Catherine leading the way in the discus and high jump. Kyle’s pet event proved to be the most popular as almost all students competed in the hurdles. Kyle’s demonstration of the hurdles showed he is still a class athlete and inspired the kids to keep at it.

Local students and members of the community came out to cheer on their schoolmates and were rewarded by jogging a lap of the oval with Catherine and Kyle. There were plenty of opportunities for autographs and photos and Kyle and Catherine came away with just as many autographs on their t-shirts as the students.

Oodnadatta had six students compete in all the events at the carnival and were pleased to take home a couple of age champions and to be named the overall champion school.

The local community made sure the whole group felt at home and were well fed with home baked cakes, biscuits, meals and a special BBQ on the day of the carnival. A big thank you goes out to the community for their hospitality.

Lena from Kuarna Plains summed up the week with this statement “It takes a community to raise a child. This week the communities of Leigh Creek, Oodnadatta, Marree, Kuarna Plains and Athletics Australia came together in a beautiful way to do something great for the kids.”