Australian technical officials level up to international ranks

Athletics Australia welcomes four more of its talented team to its rapidly growing ranks of international technical officials.

Following the World Athletics evaluation in October for global level race walking judges, two former international race walkers have gained Silver status.

Scott Nelson (Victoria) and Blake Steele (Tasmania) have converted their passion and success on the track and road as athletes to new roles as judges – in one of the most challenging areas of technical officiating in athletics.

“The judging of race walking is one of the few aspects of our sport that has a subjective element, requiring a special skill-set, understanding and empathy,” Athletics Australia General Manager, Delivery and Partnerships Samantha Culbert said.

“We have a fine group of existing international race walking judges and it’s great to see their stocks replenished with four committed officials – making it that little bit easier for us to stage world ranking competitions in Australia.”

School teacher Nelson, who represented New Zealand in major teams on eight occasions and was a bronze medallist at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, is a long-term Victorian resident with partner Australian Olympian Gabrielle Blythe and their family. Steele who was a Youth Olympian in 2010 and an Australian Under 20 champion two years later is now Executive Officer of Athletics Tasmania.

Jodie Sundstrom (NSW) and Rodney Clarke (Queensland), both multi-discipline technical officials, have been recognised as Bronze international judges.

The quartet join Australia’s five current international race walking judges – Marion Buchanan (Silver-WA), Renee Cassell (Silver-ACT), Lisa Colquhoun (Silver-ACT), Kirsten Crocker (Gold-NSW) and Zoe Eastwood-Bryson (Gold-SA).

“Mentoring is a crucial element in providing officials with the chance to improve their knowledge and qualifications and we are very appreciative of the support provided to these four in the preparation for the evaluation from our current international judges and former gold judge Wayne Fletcher,” Ms Culbert said.

“No better example than when Zoe provided Jodie, as part of her development, with a shadow judging task at the recent World Championships in Budapest.

By Brian Roe, Athletics Australia
Posted: 10/11/2023