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Several of Australia’s most famous indigenous track and field athletes, Cathy Freeman and Kyle Vander Kuyp, are taking athletics to the outback as part of Athletics Australia’s re-formatted indigenous development program.
‘Athletics for the Outback’, kicked off this month (13-15 May), when Australian high hurdler Kyle Vander Kuyp travelled 1100km north of Perth to Newman, Western Australia. The next stop for the new program is Mackay, Queensland (11-13 June) where Cathy Freeman is set to visit her home town of Slade Point.
In each region Freeman and Vander Kuyp, in conjunction with the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association (ATFCA), deliver a basic coaching and talent identification course for potential coaches. They also conduct an athletics program for indigenous children of the region which is proving very popular - in Newman a group of students travelled three hours from Marble Bar, along unsealed road to meet their hero.
Resulting from the two day intensive coaching and talent identification course, participants in these outback regions obtain coaching accreditation, giving Athletics the vital injection it needs in remote areas of Australia.
Following this initial course, newly accredited coaches are encouraged to conduct athletic coaching clinics and run carnivals throughout the year. Each area has already received traditional athletic equipment, such as starting blocks, throwing implements, long jump mats, measuring tapes, starting pistol, line marker, teaching resource, scoring sheets and ribbons for the athletes.
As coaching and talent identification progresses throughout the year, talented athletes will be invited by Athletics Australia to attend a camp in December 2005 in Sydney, where they will have access to some of the best athletes and coaches in the country and compete against the best school aged athletes in the country at the 2005 IGA National All Schools Championships.
Newman (WA) and Mackay (Qld) are two of four target areas in the first year of this program, with clinics to roll out in Normanton (North Qld) and Kalgoorlie (WA) over coming months. In 2006 the pilot areas will be revisited to allow coaches to increase their knowledge and skills. New centres will also be added in Nth Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Northern Territory.
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