Athletics Opportunity in Melbourne

The 2018 Victoria Open and Para Track and Field Championships will be held at Lakeside Stadium, Albert Park Victoria March 2nd - 4th next year.

A couple of days prior, the 27th of February - 1st March I will have the opportunity to get internationally classified in Athletics. This basically means my current provisional/temporary classification of T/F41 will be "confirmed", and I will be eligible for medals and even possible records.

As I currently do not have this, in March this year at the New Zealand Track and Field Championships although I placed to get a medal in two out of three events, I was unable to get it due to not having an international classification.

Unfortunately, New Zealand can't provide me with an International Classification as they do not have the right people to do so. Therefore, Australia is the place to go for it.

Not only will I be able to get internationally classified; I will also have the opportunity to compete against people who hold the same classification as me, which I haven't done before.

This will not only provide the chance for friendships ( as well as with other athletes), I can see where I am compared to them distance and technique wise, which in terms of distance, is hard to tell off a percentage.

When all para-athletes of different classifications compete against each other, they are placed accordingly to the percentage they made in regards to the World Record.

I do Shot Put, Discus and Javelin. My percentages for these events at NZ Nationals were 39% for Shot Put, 27% for Javelin and 23% for Discus. I was reasonably happy with these percentages considering at this time I had only had around 2-3 months of serious training.

I believe these percentages would have improved nicely when I throw in Melbourne.

I would love to go to Melbourne to experience this opportunity, where I will be able to compete on a larger scale with tons of athletes while having a blast doing it!