Verdon College student Abby O’Boyle, 15, won the gold medal in the 800m event at the New Zealand Secondary School Athletics Championships in Timaru last weekend.
She recorded a time of 2mins 12.31secs, with the next competitor finishing in 2:12.81.
Abby also won a bronze medal in the 1500m final hours after her gold.
"I am stoked — yeah, I feel pretty good. It was my last event doing under 16, so I’m kind of glad because next year I’ll be senior with all the older girls, so it is pretty exciting."
Last year she was third in the competition and had made it her goal to do better this time, she said.
"I was the youngest last year, or one of the youngest, so I thought [this would be an] advantage this year as I was already older than some of the girls, but I did all my training that I could and my coach, Lance Smith, helped me and I just pushed myself and it has paid off.
"I also got a bronze in the 1500 a couple hours later. I wasn’t expecting that because I was feeling pretty tired after my race, but no, it was pretty awesome."
Abby has been running since she was about 5 years old, always taking part in cross-country events, and at 7, she decided to have a go at athletics.
She started as a sprinter but when she reached the age allowed to run middle distances, she tried it and had "stuck with it".
The year 10 student said she really enjoyed racing, practising three days a week as well as running as often as possible.
But her favourite part was the friendships she had nurtured on the way, she said.
"I love competing and I love meeting new friends through it. I’m friends with all the girls I race against now and it’s really cool."
Now, Abby will be focusing on her next competition, the club’s championship in Dunedin in March, which will be her first attempt at senior level.
"I’ll be under 18, to be [competing against] older girls and the older girls are definitely fast, so I’ll have to work pretty hard to get to that level but, hopefully, I can."
She will also work towards getting a scholarship to the United States where she can further develop her running skills as her dream is to reach the international stage.
"My biggest goal is to be able to represent New Zealand. That would be a dream come true and then ... it’s always a dream to go further than that — like, the Commonwealth Games, the Olympics, but I want to aim to just represent my country first, so that would be really cool."
Southland also had other great results at the competition.
Southland Boys’ High School long-distance runner James McLeay won the senior boys’ 1500m in 4.5.50, and was second in the senior boys’ 3000m in a personal-best time of 8.32.09.
James Hargest College’s Will Brown took silver in the junior boys’ long jump with 6.26m, while Southland Boys’ thrower Hector O’Rourke won bronze in the senior boys’ discus with 48.33m.
Connor Gilliland (Central Southland) won silver in the senior boys’ 110m hurdles with a personal best of 14.71secs.
