{"id":187,"date":"2014-03-19T21:47:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T21:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/?p=187"},"modified":"2014-03-19T21:47:24","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T21:47:24","slug":"sally-pearson-launches-kids-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/news\/sally-pearson-launches-kids-athletics","title":{"rendered":"Sally Pearson launches kids athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sally<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not usual to see kids lining up to hurl something at a poster of one of Australia\u2019s most popular athletes, but if Kim Mickle had been at Melbourne\u2019s Loreto Mandeville Hall on a sunny Wednesday morning she would not have minded one bit.<\/p>\n

For one thing, a woman who described herself recently as \u201cjust a little kid from Perth who likes to throw things\u201d would be pleased to see young children doing just that. For another, the Mickle poster was the target for the throws exercise in a demonstration of the IAAF \/ Nestl\u00e9 Kids Athletics initiative.<\/p>\n

In the presence of four current Olympic or world champion athletes \u2013 Sally Pearson, Natasha Hastings, David Oliver and LaShawn Merritt \u2013 more than 100 children participated in the athletics-based clinic to kick off the program aimed at increasing participation in track and field. The four athletes joined in the activities to the obvious delight of the kids.<\/p>\n

The program already operates in some parts of Australia \u2013 northern Queensland and some of the remote communities \u2013 and in the Oceania region. But the country\u2019s unique system of Little Athletics, a modified athletics program for children from five to 16, presented some special problems.<\/p>\n

Athletics Australia chief executive Dallas O\u2019Brien said yesterday the IAAF \/ Nestl\u00e9 Kids Athletics program would be offered to Australian children as part of the national after-school care scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program will help Australian children maintain a healthy and active lifestyle, while providing a key introduction to the fundamentals of track and field that may encourage a young athlete to join their local Little Athletics centre or athletics club.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien said the program would offer opportunity for both Little Athletics centres and local clubs to encourage and recruit new members, a situation he described as \u201cwin-win\u201d for both.<\/p>\n

The national roll-out of the programme will occur in several phases over this year. The first is a pilot scheme involving six Victorian schools, four in Melbourne and one each in the major provincial centres of Ballarat and Bendigo. After a second consolidation and feedback phase it will then be rolled out in other states.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien said he was sure a successful roll-out would see \u201ca higher level of engagement in our sport by school-aged children. That\u2019s a positive step towards developing our next generation of Australian talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Projected results for the pilot year of the program would see the completed training of 250 development officers and coaches, and the participation of 950 schools and 20,000 children (plus a further 5000 through the \u2018fan zones\u2019 at Australian Athletics Tour meetings).<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 will be the key sponsor of the \u2018fan zone\u2019 at the Melbourne IAAF World Challenge meeting on Saturday, 22 March, after earlier involvement in Perth and Sydney.<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 has been the main IAAF Kids Athletics worldwide sponsor since 2012, which has already seen programmes supporting children\u2019s athletics participation introduced in more than 80 countries.<\/p>\n

Katrina Koutoulas, Nestl\u00e9 Oceania head of nutrition, health and wellness, said: \u201cNestl\u00e9 is committed to enhancing the quality of children\u2019s lives through helping parents provide tastier and healthier food and encouraging active, healthy lifestyles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yvonne Mullins, the executive director of the Oceania Athletics Association, also welcomed the introduction of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Oceania Athletics Association is really excited to see its biggest federation take this on,\u201d said Mullins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIAAF Nestl\u00e9 Healthy Kids Athletics has been introduced in North Queensland and remote communities but it is good to now see the national federation take it on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a world project and really important to the kids coming through. It\u2019s working already in the islands and we\u2019re very fortunate to have Nestl\u00e9 as a sponsor. It is a very important development tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Len Johnson for the IAAF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not usual to see kids lining up to hurl something at a poster of one of Australia\u2019s most popular athletes, but if Kim Mickle had been at Melbourne\u2019s Loreto Mandeville Hall on a sunny Wednesday morning she would not have minded one bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1,3],"tags":[175,142,176,177,152],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-track","tag-athletes","tag-australia","tag-katrina-koutoulas","tag-kids","tag-sally-pearson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}