By Marc McGowan
A FIVE-year-old Narre Warren girl completed three generations of her family’s involvement at Casey Little Athletics Centre this month.
Madeline van der Zalm made her first foray into the athletics world this year, following the significant contributions at the club of her mother, Katrina Olsson, 27, and grandfather, Paul Olsson, 51.
Katrina was a star junior athlete and is now a coach at Casey, while Paul was the founding president of the club.
Casey was formerly known as Berwick Village Little Athletics Club and its athletes, including Katrina, competed at Dandenong Little Athletics Centre (DLAC).
But Berwick Village’s members voted to establish their own centre at Edwin Flack Reserve in 2001 after registration numbers exceeded 150.
And Berwick resident Paul, who also had a stint as president of Berwick Village, was the man entrusted with leading the club into its new frontier.
“The biggest thing was getting committee members to do that extra bit of work to get it going,” he said.
“We had to go through all the formalities with the Victorian Little Athletics Association and they gave us the right guidelines on what we should be doing.
“We had most of the equipment we needed because we were already a club and we were lucky the facilities at Edwin Flack Reserve were fairly comprehensive.”
In that inaugural year 259 athletes competed and that number has now grown to almost 500.
“It was amazing because every year when we had our registrations we would aim to get an extra 20 or 30 kids, but we’d actually get 50 or 60 or even 100 new members,” Paul said.
“I remember kids who started in under-sixes and basically couldn’t do anything, but are now really good athletes and people to boot.”
Paul is now the president of new senior club Casey Cardinia Athletics.
His passion for the sport – and the little athletics club – was passed onto Katrina and her siblings, Justin, 25, Ryan, 19, and Amanda, 17.
Katrina still holds three centre records at DLAC, as well as a best-performance record for the centre at Olympic Park.
“I haven’t been at Casey for long, but I just love the environment and the people,” she said.
“I love watching and I feel at home down there. It’s in the blood. I’ve just grown up doing athletics and it’s second nature to me.”
It was only natural that Madeline would start competing once she was old enough and Paul’s excitement was obvious – he gave her a Casey jacket for her fifth birthday in August.
But Katrina, who has another daughter, Lily, 20 months, said there was no pressure on Madeline to stay involved in little athletics.
“It was just one of those things – once she turned five she would start little athletics,” she said.
“If she turns around to me when the season is finished and says she doesn’t want to do it anymore then that’s fine.
“She can try as many sports as she likes until she finds her niche. I’ll still continue at the club regardless of whether she does or not.”
But why does Katrina rate athletics above the many other sports on offer?
“Athletics is a sport where kids of different ages compete in the same place and, as a parent, you can watch all of your children and not be running from tennis to basketball to netball – it’s a good sport like that,” she said.
