As in many sports, numbers have been gradually declining and only a handful of stars are plying their trade in the region. Saturday meetings are not as competitive as they once were and retaining top athletes beyond school is proving difficult. But it is not all bad news. No club is in danger of falling over at present, there is young talent coming through and the community is enjoying its recent success on the world stage.
"I think in general terms athletics in Otago is riding on the wave of the popularity generated by the Paralympics," Athletics Otago president Bruce Cowan said.
"We’ve got a group of Paralympians that are based in Dunedin that were outstanding in their performances in Rio.
"It’s meant that everyone is feeling pretty good about the sport. We’ve got people coming along and competing on Saturday that we probably otherwise wouldn’t have. They’re competing at the track and they’re seeing people like Holly Robinson and Anna Grimaldi performing each Saturday as normal people. Its great to see them out there so soon after their successes in Rio."
However, that did not hide the fact that participation numbers were falling. There were 966 registered athletes in the region this season, and an additional 130 volunteers affiliated with clubs. Of those athletes, 588 came in the ages 14 and under, while only 186 fell in the competitive 20-plus grade. The overall total compared with 1086 last season.
Cowan said there were a variety of reasons for that and identified the transition between children’s athletics to seniors and the age of leaving school as being key ages for drop-offs. There had been plenty of talented school athletes in recent times and the inability to retain many of them was something the sport was trying to address.
"We certainly have tried a number of initiatives over the years to do something about that loss at that age group, but it hasn’t been particularly successful at this point."
Cowan thought increased options of sports available upon leaving school, work commitments and social activities were among the reasons for the drop-off. Several top achievers had been lured away to the US on college scholarships, which was something Cowan called a fact of life. There was also more competition than ever before to attract athletes. Along with other sports, Athletics Otago was up against commercial events such as the Queenstown marathon, which were alternative options for athletes.
Despite that, Cowan was optimistic about the future of the sport. While the region had a lack of track stars at present, there were some quality coaches around and young athletes who were on the brink of flourishing in the next couple of years.
"I think our sport, it’s like a lot of other sports. When you have athletes that are performing well nationally and internationally, you have a lot of people take up that event.
"We don’t have our track stars at the present time in the short and middle-distance events and that’s just a phase we’re going through nationally at the moment.
"I think by the time Oli Chignell, Sam Gouverneur and Felix McDonald, once they get into the older age-groups, I think we’ll have our national stars back again.
"Athletics was looking at new initiatives to boost numbers and that revolved around creating the best possible environment it could to compete in.
"We can’t make the sport different to what it is; it is bound by its rules and regulations and so on.
"But what you can do is make the environment more exciting and more interesting and that’s what we’re focusing on.
"So we want to make sure the environment is a fun one for people to be in and it’s a professionally run event whenever we run one. That means training of officials, making coaches available and it also means making events more fun, more attractive."
He said the Port Road Race was an example of this: opening it up to the general public, putting up a handful of prizes and holding it at a time of year with better running conditions.
