Something in the Water | Coffs Kids’ Quest to Conquer

Coffs Harbour is far from a running mecca, but a group of teenagers are defying the odds. Local products Jade Kitching and Daniel Williams will occupy two of the nine stations in tonight’s 800m final, landing the city renowned for The Big Banana on the map as a source of track and field talent.

Kitching is quick to concede that living in the rural city comes with more disadvantages than advantages, starting with the fact that there is no athletics track in sight, but that might just be what makes the happy-go-lucky duo so good:

“Danny [Williams] and I are both homegrown, it’s very peaceful. I feel like it’s a good place to grow up because you don’t have the pressures of the city and we have a lot of good places to run even though we don’t have a track - we have learned to improvise,” Kitching said.

At 16-years-old, Kitching and his 15-year-old teammate Williams have sacrificed favouritism in their age groups to compete in the Under 18 ranks - hoping to punch their ticket to the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago this August. 

“We are planning to try and go for the qualifier for the Commonwealth Youth Games, it’s 1:50.70. I have believed for a while that I can pull it off in the right race, but it’s time to put my money where my mouth is,” Kitching said.

“Me and Danny are very do-first people rather than thinking about it. We are ready to rip a good time and have some fun doing it.” 

If either of them can achieve the feat, they will follow in the footsteps of Hayley Kitching who finished seventh in the 800m final at the 2022 World Athletics Under 20 Championships in Cali, Colombia before signing with Penn State in the NCAA – acting as a source of inspiration for her Coffs counterparts:

“Hayley’s success definitely opened my eyes to the international side of things, especially her going to college made me expand my horizons a bit and think about what I can do if I keep working on it,” Kitching said.

Training under the tutelage of Andrew Rowlings, Williams and Rowlings have joined forces in recent years for speed work which they conduct on an AFL oval on Thursdays, as the tight-knit team rides every wave together on their rise to national prominence.

“All the mistakes Timmy has learned over the years with Hayley has kind of upgraded my training in a sense,” Kitching said.

The emerging teenagers have been forced to learn the importance of planning and executing races at a young age, with a long time to think about things on the drive home:

“It is a bit of a trek to go to races because we are in no man’s land a little bit. We really have to plan races more because it really does take it out of you driving five or six hours for a race,” Kitching said.

Set to take race for national glory at 6:32pm AEST on Day Three of the Australian Junior Track and Field Championships, Kitching delivered a final plug for his home city: 

“Coffs is one of the more underrated places, there are beautiful beaches and obviously The Big Banana. It’s just a great place to relax, if you go to the right places I reckon it’s better than Sydney – the places aren’t really known enough.”

All the action on Day Three of the 2023 Chemist Warehouse Australian Junior Athletics Championships can be viewed live and free on 7plus from 1:30pm AEST.