Academy Southland fundamental for athlete pathways in Southland
As we rush towards the end of the year and the end of the decade, let’s pause for a second to pick over one particular result from the New Zealand secondary schools athletics champs in Wellington earlier this month.
Jess Senior’s final round throw in the senior girls’ javelin was a 43.58m personal best which saw the Athletics Southland representative and Academy Southland graduate leapfrog frontrunner Savannah Scheen to take the gold medal and end her school athletics career with a national title.
If you talk to her coach, renowned Dunedin-based throws coach Raylene Bates, it’s a perfect representation of why Academy Southland was created.
Consider the following. The 18-year-old hails from Northern Southland College but attended Southland Girls’ High School. Her sport can sometimes play a support role to larger codes and javelin can be a lonely pursuit.
In other words, there are any number of hurdles between someone like Jess and success.
“The whole reason why the academies were set up was to create that link between the academies and carding (High Performance Sport NZ investment),” Raylene said.
“It’s absolutely fundamental, especially in the regions, because otherwise those athletes would get left behind. You get far more support from the community when it’s something that’s local and what betterway to identify kids and keep them in their own regions.”
As Raylene says, you only have to look at the number of athletes across a wide range of codes who have gone on to success in sport and life to understand the role that Academy Southland and regional sportsorganisations can play in partnership.
“It’s a critical pathway, and a pathway that a lot of athletes who have gone onto major success wouldn’t have been able to achieve without that support around them.”
Raylene knew before Jess even threw her first javelin that it was going to be a good day at Newtown Park.
“The thing that impressed me the most was her warm-up. She was so focused; you could just see her going through her mental preparation. I thought ‘my goodness this girl is going to throw well today’.
“The last round she absolutely nailed it, had a great throw and ended up winning it. I was really excitedfor her because she was in control, but more importantly, she focused on the how, not the outcome – and got the outcome as a result. She was happy and I was really happy.”
Raylene had three javelin throwers at the pinnacle school athletics event, with all three picking up gold medals.
She often uses social media platforms or FaceTime to coach athletes from a distance, including Jess.
“We’ve developed a really good understanding over the last couple of years that I’ve been mentoring her. She’s absolutely brilliant because she’s intelligent and she understands the event. She understands the technical side, but she also understands what we are trying to achieve. She might be very quiet, but she’s a real worker, she just takes it in and gets on with it.”
Raylene believes Jess, who is shifting to Christchurch next year to further her studies, can have a great future in athletics.
“She’s got an amazing arm on her. The world is her oyster. It won’t be easy leaving home and going to study next year, it never is in that transition year for athletes,” she said.
“A lot will depend on how she adapts to that next year. I personally think she could be a senior international javelin thrower. She has the athletic ability, but she also understands what’s involved and that’s half the battle.”
Rural New Zealand remains a great breeding ground for talented athletes, according to Raylene.
“Country girls, they always throw better. When you are brought up on a farm you grow up lifting hay bales and picking up lambs, they are just a bit more robust – I love working with country kids.”
