mmg.com.au

Kyabram’s Carlie Whitford was the star performer at the Victorian Country Athletics Championships held in Geelong over the Australia Day long weekend.

Carlie won six individual gold medals in the under-18 age group and her impressive performance earned her the Australia Day medal for best female competitor over the whole event.

Her individual gold medals came in the under-18 100m, 200m, 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles, long jump and triple jump.

She also collected a relay gold in the under-20 4 x 100m and a silver in the same event at open level.

Carlie won the Victorian multi-event competition last month and coach Terry Hicks said she fully deserved her medal as the best woman competitor in Geelong.

‘‘She used to be more of a jumper, but now she has taken up the heptathlon and she is very good at everything else,’’ he said.

Lancaster’s Stacy Brasier and Tongala’s Siobhan Thompson also competed well at the championships and coach Terry Hicks was delighted with all their performances.

‘‘I don’t think they were expecting to go as well as they did, because we were treating it more as a training camp for the state and national competitions coming up,’’ he said.

The coach praised the performances of his charges including their times in the 400m hurdles, an event they have only recently started working on.

‘‘All of the girls have just started doing 400m hurdles and Carlie in particular has just excelled at it,” he said.

‘‘Her times now are just 1.5 seconds outside the Australian qualifying time for World Youth Championships specifications.’’

In December Carlie broke two under-18 Bendigo track records beating the previous top pentathlon points score and 100m hurdles best time.

She has a busy competition schedule coming up, starting with the Victorian Youth Championships in Melbourne this weekend.

A week later she will be in Adelaide competing in a heptathlon (seven events) at the National Youth Multi Events championship.