KELLY’S EARLY TRIUMPHS SIGNAL A HUGE SEASON AHEAD
Published Sat 02 Dec 2023
Most junior athletes would like to collect a new personal best, even better would be a national title or a state record. However, for Lauren Kelly, 2023 hasn’t just been a year for new personal bests, it’s been a year of state records and national medals.
Kelly has delivered a collection of tour-de-force performances to launch her 2023-24 campaign with the independent athlete collecting five state records in two months.
2023 has seen the young thrower collect a national junior title, four state titles and seven state records in total, but Kelly isn’t done yet with the 15-year-old ready to make the most of the 2023 Chemist Warehouse Australian All Schools Championships.
Looking back on how she concluded her 2022-23 season at the Australian Junior Championships, Kelly won the Women’s U16 Shot Put Final with a State Record of 14.71m and collected bronze in the Women’s U16 Javelin.
“I was really happy with my result, but I knew I still wanted to throw further. I got 14.71m, and I was pretty happy with that, but the next goal is 15m so I used it to motivate me and push me on.” Kelly said.
“At the beginning of the off-season, I had a bit of a break, but then I just focused on getting back into training. I started off just going to the gym and drilling throws, not really doing too much else. As the season started approaching, I was hitting the gym pretty hard, and then I started going out and throwing more.”
Kelly’s off-season did what was needed as the young thrower showed no loss of power between the Junior Championships and the opening round of the 2023-24 Strive Season powered by Go For 2&5, with Kelly making a statement by improving her own state record by 25cm.
Returning to the shot-put circle two weeks later for the WA All Schools Championships powered by Go For 2&5, Kelly brought something special to the WA Athletics Stadium with a massive throw of 15.29m. The throw added a further 58cm to her U16 Shot Put State Record and also broke the U18 Shot Put record. Kelly then backed this up with a huge throw of 48.08m in the U16 Javelin to set her fourth State Record of the 2023-24 season.
Completing the trifecta of throwing disciplines, Kelly secured her fifth state record of the season with a throw of 46.83m in U16 Discus competition.
Now, with the 2023 Chemist Warehouse All Schools Championships less than a week away, Kelly and coach Luke Cann have their focus on bettering the records even further.
“My goal is to PB in everything. That would get me the State Records again, but I would also really like to get a medal in each of the throws.”
“Before, I’ve only ever gotten a medal in Shot Put and Javelin, so one in Shot Put, Javelin and Discus would be an amazing achievement. That’s been my goal since my first medals, so I’m still working towards that. That would be really awesome.”
“If I can get all three medals at Nationals, that would be a great achievement, but also, just looking at the future, I’ve seen Josiah John [set a qualifier for the] U20 World Championships, I think one day going to a World Championships would be pretty amazing.”
Kelly will next be in action at the 2023 Chemist Warehouse Australian All Schools Championships, supported by Tourism WA and the WA Government. The three-day event will see Australia’s best school-aged athletes compete in team-based competition.
For more information and to follow all the upcoming athletics action head to Athletics West’s Facebook, Instagram & TikTok pages.
For any queries, please contact Athletics West at admin@athleticswest.com.au or 08 6272 0480.
By David Smith and Dylan Gane (Athletics West)
Posted 2 December 2023
