By JARROD POTTER
NOT many athletes actively want to take a drug test, but Berwick rising star Dayna Crees has great reason to submit to testing … she wants to claim her first world record.
Crees, 12, will have to wait for another chance to verify her incredible long jump feat after excelling at last week’s School Sport Australia Track and Field Championships – held in Penguin, Tasmania – where she won five gold, one silver and two bronze medals to sweep the athletes-with-disabilities (AWD) categories.
Smashing the Australian senior record as well with her 2.45-metre leap that won her multi-disability event, if the testing was available Crees would now also hold the TF35 world record which is currently 2.29m.
It was her major goal from the meet, having just missed the mark at the Victorian championships.
“I actually competed at the Victorian All Schools before Tassie and I jumped 5cm off the world record, then my goal for coming into Tasmania was to jump the world record,” Crees said.
“The first jump was alright – 4cm off – but then the next jump I smashed it by about 20cm and I went ‘I jumped the world record’ I was screaming and all that stuff.
“I went up to my coach and said ‘can it be verified, what do I have to do’ because I had the paperwork with me, and dad took it up to the officials and I went off to my other event.
“He came back and said the world record couldn’t be verified yet cause you needed drug testing and the wind gauge and they didn’t have it there, so I was a bit upset about it but I know with the Australian juniors coming up in March I could jump it again and it would be verified.”
The championships did not have drug testing equipment available but Crees’ stellar leap – with a multi-disability rating of 122.5 per cent – made sure any future event will have to be ready for her to smash record after record in years to come.
She’ll head to Sydney in March for a chance to earn her world record officially at the Australian Athletics Junior Track and Field Championships and potentially knock off some other records in her other medal winning events.
Dayna also earned gold in the 100m, 200m, shot put and discus – with her shot put and discus throws enough to earn her under-16 Australian records.
“I didn’t think I’d be that good and able to win that many medals as there was a lot of competition up there,” Crees said.
She wrapped up her incredible week at the championships with silver in the 800m and two relay bronze medals in the 4x100m and medley relay.
The St Francis Xavier athlete took to any event – whether track or field – with gusto as she claimed her 11th Australian national championship in her second year competing at the School Sport Australia Championships.
She’s also become involved with swimming and hopes to excel in the freestyle discipline with her Casey TigerSharks Swimming Club team mates.
Dayna wanted to thank her family and her coaches for their support of her athletics journey so far.
