Rio Tinto Athletics For The Outback

• Focus: Reach towns often missed due to geographical barriers and support athletes ahead of regional competitions like the North West Championships.
• Impact:
  • Four weeks of program delivery planned in 2025, reaching both coastal and inland towns.
  • Engagement with schools and Little Athletics centres through multiple visits.

• Focus: Strengthen long-standing community engagement and school participation.
• Impact:
  • Longest-running AFTO location since the start of the Rio Tinto partnership.
  • Young athletes have progressed to regional and state-level competitions.
  • Delivered monthly sessions across schools and community groups in 2024.

The delivery of the Rio Tinto Athletics in the Outback (AFTO) program in the Northern Territory (NT) since 2022 has undoubtedly produced some of the program’s greatest impact. The NT AFTO program has engaged with some of the most isolated regional and remote communities in Australia, forging cultural connections, uncovering an abundance of raw, natural talent, and bringing excitement and opportunity to First Nations people through the fun and power of the inclusive sport of athletics.

Since the inception of AFTO in the NT, the program has gone from strength to strength with a very clear focus on remote communities that have often not been supported by other sports. Regions such as the Gove Peninsula and East Arnhem land have benefitted greatly from continued and consistent AFTO visits. Through this work, Australian Athletics has been invited to attend sporting events such as the Arnhem Sports Carnival which hosts all homeland/remote schools in the region. Excitingly, the NT AFTO programs have also seen a large cohort of athletes from East Arnhem communities attend the NT Athletics Championships where they, in turn, proceeded to qualify for and compete at the Australian All Schools Championships.