Cassandra Raselli continues to rack up achievements in the athletics world, with her latest foray on to the track earning her a state record. By Marc McGowan
BERWICK racewalker Cassandra Raselli continues to take all before her with a state record the latest in a long line of achievements in the past year.
Cassandra, 12, creamed the opposition on her way to clocking 6:53.34 in the under-13 1500-metre racewalking event at the Victorian Little Athletics Association State Championships last month.
Her time smashed the previous mark by three seconds, which had stood for the last decade, while taking seven seconds off her previous personal best time.
“I looked at the time and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh’. I didn’t know what to think; I was so excited and so thrilled,” the year seven student at Presbyterian Ladies College in Burwood said.
“I had just been on a school camp for a week and had been out climbing. My muscles were really sore and aching, so I had no idea what I was going to do (at the championships).”
Her sport battles for recognition and Cassandra has trouble explaining it to the uninformed.
“Everybody calls it power walking. As soon as you say power walking in the Olympics they seem to know, but if some of them don’t, I just say it’s a version of faster walking with rules,” she said.
No matter how you define it, Cassandra is good at it. Very good.
She has dominated the state and national junior athletics scene to the tune of 13 medals in the last 12 months, including no fewer than nine gold.
“It makes me feel good. Lately, I’ve been basically getting PB after PB. I don’t know what to expect; I’m just really committed and always try my best,” Cassandra said.
While she was previously coached by Wendy Muldoon, it is her mother, Elke, who has taken over the reins after travel became an issue when she moved into high school this year.
“It’s really, really good. With having a coach that wasn’t in your family, it’s really hard because they choose where you go, but with mum, I can train when I want to train to be better for us to fit it in,” Cassandra said.
Elke, too, is relishing the new alliance with her daughter.
“I can take into consideration things other coaches wouldn’t. If I know she’s done sport all day at school, I won’t let her train whereas another coach still expects you to go to training,” she said.
“The overall balance for her is better between school life and athletics. You need to take everything into consideration.”
After competing in the under-14 category as a bottom age athlete regularly last season. Cassandra, who turns 13 in August, will now embark on the age group a year older and wiser.
The crown in the winter season is the Lake Burley Griffin Racewalking Australia Championships in Canberra over the Queens Birthday weekend in June.
She emerged victorious in the under-12 event over two kilometres last year and is keen to repeat the dose in 2007.
“It is the biggest racewalking event of the year. In the big races, when they say, ‘On your marks’, you just think, ‘What am I doing?’,” Cassandra said.
“It is a bit of a mental blank and you don’t know what you’re doing, but as soon as the gun goes off, you are so focused on the race and that race is your life, and your life depends on that race.”
It will be just another step on what she hopes is a long and prosperous journey, which she hopes has stops at the 2009 World Youth Championships in Italy and, fingers crossed, the 2012 London Olympic Games.
“It would be fantastic. A real honour,” Cassandra said.
